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THE CALL OF THE WEST 



THE CALL OF THE 

WEST - LETTERS FROM 
BRITISH COLUMBIA 



BY 

C. F. J. GALLOWAY 

Capt. R.M.R.E. 



WITH 135 ILLUSTRATIONS 



NFAV YORK 
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 
1916 



FV 1 



(-4// wgfe/s yesevvcJ) 

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE BIiOCAN . . . . .15 

II. THE LILLOOET COUNTRY .48 

III. THE ISLAND . . . .77 

IV. BEAR RIVER ...... Ill 

V. PRINCE RUPERT AND THE QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS 160 

VI. THE PEACE RIVER ..... 184 

VII. THE TERMINAL CITY ..... 239 

VIII. DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA .... 279 

INDEX ....... 325 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



WHITEWATER IN WINTER 


Frontispiece 




FACING PAGE 


A MINE CAMP ..... 


. 22 


8.S. " KASLO " AT KASLO 


. 22 


WHITEWATER DEPOT, WINTER 


. 28 


WINTER SCENERY .... 


. 28 


WHITEWATER GLACIER 


. 36 


THE MILL, WHITEWATER MINE 


. 42 


PACK MULES ..... 


. 42 


THE FRASER AT HOPE 


. 50 


CROSSING A ROCKSLIDE 


. 50 


ON THE TRAIL .... 


. 50 


IN A GULLY ..... 


. 56 


CROSSING A GLACIER .... 


. 56 


THE DESCENT ON THE OTHER SIDE . 


. 56 


IN CAMP ..... 


62 


THE CANVAS BOAT .... 


62 


BY THE LAKE SHORE .... 


62 


WHITEWATER LAKE .... 


68 


AN IMPROVISED SAIL .... 


. 68 



10 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



MOUNT CARDIFF 

OUR BIVOUAC . 

HORSES MIRED IN A MUSKEG . 

GUN CREEK BRIDGE . 

GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, VICTORIA 

A FISHING VILLAGE . 

" HOUSE ROCK," GALIANO ISLAND 

SUNSET, PORTIER PASS 

CAMPBELL RIVER FALLS 

FELLING A FOREST GIANT 

DUMPING LOGS INTO THE WATER 
CAMPBELL RIVER . 

CHIEF'S HOUSE AND TOTEM POLES, ALERT BAY 

QUATSINO INDIAN VILLAGE 

INDIAN CANOES, QUATSINO 

PAINTED HOUSE 

NATIVE GRAVES 

CHIEF'S HOUSE, QUATSINO 

A FREIGHT TRAIN ON THE CARIBOO ROAD 

THE MAIL COACH 

THE CHASM 

141 MILE HOUSE 

IN FORT GEORGE CA&ON 

HEADWATERS OF BEAR RIVER 

ON BEAR RIVER 



AT THE MOUTH OF 



FACING PAGB 

68 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



11 



BUILDING BOATS .... 

POPLAR, 2' 6" DIAMETER, PARTLY CUT THROUGH 

POPLAR FELLED BY BEAVER 

A BEAVER DAM 

THE DINING-ROOM 

SUNDAY IN CAMP 

THE FIRST SNOW 

IN THE ICE , 

LOADING THE BOATS 

ON THE WAY HOME 

SOUTH FORT GEORGE . 

FIRST AVENUE, PRINCE RUPERT, 1910 

SECOND AVENUE, PRINCE RUPERT, 1910 

RESIDENTIAL SECTION, PRINCE RUPERT, 1910 

PRINCE RUPERT CLUB, SECOND AVENUE, 1912 

CITY ASSESSOR'S OFFICE, 1912 

FIFTH STREET CUT, 1912 

ON THE G.T.P. RAILWAY 

ON THE NORTHERN COAST 

8KEENA RIVER STEAMERS, PRINCE RUPERT 

OLD HAIDA WAR CANOES, SKIDEGATE 

WEST END, QUEEN CHARLOTTE CITY . 

TOTEM POLES, SKIDEGATE 

INDIAN CEMETERY, SKIDEGATE 

IN CAMP .... 



FACING PAGE 

. 128 

BY BEAVER 134 

134 
140 
140 
146 
146 
152 
152 
152 
152 
160 
160 
160 
164 
164 
164 
164 
168 
168 
172 
172 
176 
182 
182 



12 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



MY COMPANION ON THE TRAIL 

A PRIMITIVE BRIDGE .... 

YAKOUN LAKE ..... 

S.S. " B.C. EXPRESS 

CANOE PORTAGE AT GISCOME . 

ON CROOKED RIVER .... 

A QUIET SPOT. .... 

A PLACE FOR A LAZY HOLIDAY 

MCLEOD'S LAKE POST .... 

ON PARSNIP RIVER .... 

GUS EXAMINES THE HEAD OF FINLAY RAPIDS 

THE PORTAGE, FINLAY RAPIDS 

IN SMOOTH WATER AGAIN 

IN PEACE RIVER PASS 

MOUNT SELWYN .... 

HOLE-IN-THE-WALL MOUNTAIN 

PEACE RIVER CANON .... 

THE SIDE CREEKS HAVE DEEP RAVINES TOO 

THE ISLANDS, PEACE RIVER CANON . 

HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY FACTOR'S HOUSE AT FORT ST. JOHN 

TELEGRAPH OFFICE, GROUARD 

TAKING ON CORDWOOD, LESSER SLAVE RIVER 

INDIAN TEEPEE, NORRIS LANDING 

BURRARD INLET, FROM STANLEY PARK 

THE NARROWS ..... 



FACING PAGE 

182 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



13 



IWASH ROCK ..... 
HE "BIG TREE," STANLEY PARK 
PVORLD BUILDING .... 

<N THE INDIAN RESERVATION, NORTH VANCOUVER 

OVING A HOUSE IN THE WEST END 
^ISIT OF T.R.H. THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CONNAUGHT 
AND PRINCESS PATRICIA, 1912 ; SOME OF THE DECORA- 
TIONS IN VANCOUVER : — 
COURT HOUSE 
C.P.R. DEPOT. 

GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY ARCH 
CHINESE ARCH 
USPENSION BRIDGE, CAPILANO CANON 
pAPILANO FLUME 

*irst canon, capilano creek 
hoyal canon, capilano creek 
jupper bridge, capilano canon 
^ynn creek rapids . 
Chinatown, san Francisco 



FACING PACE 

. 248 



Mazatlan cathedral 

TREET SCENES, ACAPULCO 



, 






ATIVE QUARTER, ACAPULCO 
(SATIVE HOUSE, SALINA CRUZ 
JPRUIT-SELLERS AT A WAYSIDE STATION 
BELIEF MAP OF GUATEMALA . 



248 

254 
254 
254 



260 
260 
260 
260 
266 
266 
270 
270 
274 
274 
280 
280 
284 
290 
290 
296 
296 



14 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



GUATEMALA CATHEDRAL 

STREET MARKET, GUATEMALA 

CORINTO, NICARAGUA . 

PANAMA CATHEDRAL . 

AVENIDA B, PANAMA . 

PANAMA CEMETERY 

CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO, PANAMA 

ON TABOGA ISLAND 

CANAL ZONE HOUSES, CRISTOBAL 

CULEBRA CUT, PANAMA CANAL 

CUCARRACHA SLIDE 

LOCK CHAMBER, PEDRO MIGUEL 

CHAMBER CRANE, MIRAFLORES 

UPPER LOCKS, GATUN 

ON THE SHORE, ST. ANNE'S BAY, JAMAICA 

A COUNTRY ROAD, JAMAICA . 



FACING PAGE 

. 296 

. 300 

... 300 

. 304 

. 304 

. 308 

. 308 

. 308 

. 310 

. 310 

. 314 

. 314 

. 318 

. 318 

. 322 

. 322 



THE CALL OF THE WEST 

CHAPTER I 

THE SLOCAN 

For nearly two years I was in the Slocan, 1 that 
country of magnificent " has-beens," perchance also 
of " will -be." The decline in the price of silver 
during the first decade of this century caused a 
flourishing, booming country to become a place of 
splendid ruins. 

In 1889 Dr. Dawson, the Grand Old Man of the 
Canadian Geological Survey, made his way in to 
Kootenay Lake guided by Indians, who paddled 
him up the length of that magnificent sheet of water, 
surrounded by a wilderness of mountains. 

In 1899 Nelson, Kaslo, Sandon, New Denver, 
Slocan City and other towns flourished in the 
district, each with its palatial hotels, its teeming 
saloons and gambling hells, its Opera House, and 
all the conveniences of a home. In the time of the 
great rush it was impossible to get a bed in Kaslo, 
all the large hotels were constantly packed, even the 
billiard-tables being occupied. 

In 1909 what a picture of departed glory ! Look 
at the Slocan Hotel in Kaslo with its enormous 
dining-room, its hundred bedrooms ! Other hotels 
all round, all deserted, boarded up, without even 

1 A mining district in West Kootenay. The accent is on the 
second syllable. 

16 



16 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

notices offering them for sale, for there is nobody 
to buy them. The poor old Opera House pasted 
all over with advertisements ; empty business 
blocks all round ! 

And if Kaslo is a city of the past, what about 
Sandon? Its one street was formed by boarding 
over the creek, because the valley was too narrow 
to build anywhere else ; the mountains rise sheer 
up on either side for thousands of feet ; they say 
the sun does manage to squeeze down between them 
on occasions, but those must be very rare. 

Kaslo is bright and sunny, on the shore of the 
lake, but Sandon, well, even in its palmy days it 
can hardly have been very bright and cheerful 1 

But in those days men didn't trouble about 
natural attractions : Sandon, with its saloons and 
gambling dens, its Opera House and other places 
of amusement, was one of the liveliest camps in 
all the wild and woolly West ; money flowed like 
water, and the tales they tell of those " good old 
times," well, the less said about them the better ! 

Talking of mining camps, a word of explanation 
may be useful to the uninitiated. The word 
" camp " used to be associated in my mind with 
tents, but that is not the case here : a mining 
camp is a district which depends for its existence 
upon the mining industry, and which, when the 
mines are exhausted, or closed down for any 
reason, vanishes off the map, after a life of any- 
thing from a few weeks up to half a century or 
more. The buildings consist in the earlier stages 
of log cabins, and later on of substantial frame 
buildings of sawn lumber. The word " camp " is 
also used in a narrower sense to describe the group 



THE SLOCAN 17 

of buildings at any particular mine, which in the 
case of some of the larger mines constitutes quite 
a town in itself. 

A deserted or a moribund mining camp is 

' certainly a desolate place, but the Slocan is not 

dead. The price of silver has improved ; good 

j ore has been found at depth in some of the older 

i mines, and it is not unlikely that the vast quantities 

I of zinc ore which are now thrown away, or 

| shipped at a very small profit, may before long 

be a marketable product. The Slocan seems 

destined to enter upon a new period of prosperity. 

But for Kaslo, and the regions along the shores 

of the lakes, a new industry has come in ; Kootenay 

Lake is already well known as a fruit-growing 

district. Empires may rise and empires may fall, 

but Kaslo will remain, and although there may 

be no more wild booms there, it will be all the 

better without them. 

In the old days there was great rivalry between 
Kaslo and Nelson, but that is long past ; Nelson 
has long established its pre-eminence as the distri- 
buting centre for West Kootenay, and is quite a 
city, ranking fifth in the province. 

• * * * * 

To any one visiting the country for the first 

time, the steamer trips over the long, narrow lakes 

! (on the Arrow Lakes from Arrowhead to West 

! Robson, and then, after a short railway journey to 

Nelson, the delightful trip up Kootenay Lake to 

: Kaslo) is a wonderful experience. The succession 

! of peaks rising on either side of the lake, which is 

i nowhere more than about three miles wide, the 

occasional peep at a glacier, the fruit farms 

2 



18 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

nestling at all points where there is sufficient level 
ground near the lake shore, the little mining camps, 
the unexpected beauties of Nature revealed on J 
rounding points, the rocky bluffs with their dense 
capping of fir, pine, and hemlock, the pretty little 
cove suddenly revealed with its cosy -looking house 
and green grass plot, its vegetable garden, dignified j 
by the name of " ranch," for that word is used in j 
British Columbia to designate almost any patch 
of cultivated ground : rather a shock after asso- 
ciating the word all one's life with endless prairies 
and millions and millions of wild cattle ! 

The steamer pulls up at one place to throw off ai 
parcel, no doubt from Timothy Eaton's, that great 
department store in Winnipeg which supplies half 
the West, to the great disgust of the retail dealers 
in the smaller towns. At another place there is 
no sign of habitation, but a woman appears on 
a little floating wharf, and hands a letter to the 
purser. 

And the passengers on board, what a motley 
collection ! For here, as in all the local steamers 
in the West, there is only one class, called by 
courtesy " first." Look at that little group of 
Englishmen who keep so much to themselves., 
They are obviously fruit -farmers returning from, 
a day in Nelson. They will gradually drop off 
before we have proceeded very far. Two of 
them are retired Army men, the others young 
fellows who have never done anything since 
they left college. Their dress, no less than 
their accent, labels them unmistakably. There 
is one with a supercilious air, who has " no 
d d use for this beastly country, don't you- 



THE SLOCAN 19 

know." He was sent out by his people, and 
is maintained by them, being a " remittance man. " 
He has tried his hand at several things out here, 
but finds that one has to work in order to earn a 
living, and that doesn't suit him. It is not the 
work that matters so much, if people would only 
appreciate one's condescension and treat one with 
proper respect, but " these beastly Canadians " 
have the impudence to treat one as an equal ! 
No, " this is a rotten country ; it is not a fit place 
for a gentleman, and as soon as 1 can get my 
mother to send me the fare back I am going 
straight home ! " 

Unfortunately, there are a great many of this 

type, and they are so loud in their talk that many 

Canadians get the impression that they are typical 

Englishmen, and form their opinions of Englishmen 

accordingly. > 

On this occasion, however, our friend is in the 

| minority, and does not meet with the sympathy 

I he craves, for the rest of the group are true 

i Englishmen who have been through the mill and 

I come out on top. 

What a contrast is presented by that other group 

I over there ! They are Swedish miners, line, big, 

I handsome men, with blue eyes, thick blond hair, 

and heavy moustaches. Two of them are working 

■ in the Whitewater Mine, and have been for a spree 

in Nelson, from which they have not yet recovered. 

They have brought the third man with them to look 

for a "yob." They are singing half the time, and 

a bottle is frequently in evidence. If they know 

] you, they will want you to take a pull at the 

! bottle with them, for good fellowship, but they will 



20 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

annoy nobody, the liquor only serving to make 
them happy, and to accentuate their habitual good i 
nature, for they are just great big children. The i 
large Scandinavian immigration into Western 
Canada is a fine thing for the country, contributing 
a very desirable element into the composite race 
that is being built up. 

Then look at those two sleek, clean-shaven men, 
who are always in animated conversation with 
some one, generally with a group. They have a 
never -failing stock of anecdotes, and all the latest 
jokes from the outside world. The3 r get into con- 
versation with everybody before the trip is over. 
There is no mistaking their vocation ; one of them 
represents a dry -goods house in Toronto ; the 
other is selling suburban lots in Calgary, a sub- 
division which he really intended to keep for his 
private friends, but he has still just a few lots 
left, and he has taken rather a fancy to you, and 
would like to see you doing really well and making 
good returns on your money ; and then the terms 
are so ridiculously easy, why, you will be able 
to turn it over at a profit of 50 per cent, before 
you have made the third payment if you want to ! 
He knows just what you want, and has a lot right 
here that will suit you down to the ground ; he 
was keeping those three for his brother-in-law in 
Regina, but he will be able to make it straight with 
him. You can have either of those for a hundred 
dollars, five dollars a month ; why, you won't know 
that you are paying anything. Which shall it be? 

Then see that shrewd Yankee who has come 
to spy out the land, to see what is to be made 
out of it. He impresses you with the fact that 



THE SLOCAN 21 

there is just one country in the world, and that 
country is the Yo united States, " and I'm telling you 
right now that what you want in this here country 
is closer trade relations with the States. It's no 
good putting it off ; Canady will have to join the 
Union sooner or later, so why not do it at once? 
The British Empire? Why, I tell you that's all very 
well for sentiment— and, mind you, I'm not saying 
anything agen sentiment— but you're not going to 
live on sentiment. What you want is trade, and 
I'm telling you right here that you aren't going to 
develop your country except by the help of the 
Younited States. Why, it stands to reason, there 
is yer market, and there is yer source of supply, 
and if you try to prevent trade from following 
its natrel course by artificial tariff restrictions, 
why, no country ken prosper, however rich it may 
be, and I doamine telling you that you've got a 
dern fine country right here. So don't make any 
mistake about that. Why, I've travelled some, and 
I kin tell you there ain't a finer country on the 
North American continent than this right here ; 
all it wants is proper administration. I'm not 
saying anything agen the British Government, mind 
you, I've a great admyration fer the British Empire, 
but to try to keep two countries seprat which are 
natrelly one, why it's not reasonable," etc., etc., 
etc., ad nauseam. 

Let us turn for relief to that jolly-looking man 
in the tweed suit. In spite of his knickers and 
cap and his fair moustache, you know he is not an 
Englishman. He has been brought up in the West 
and has never been farther east than Kansas City. 
He is rough and ready in manner ; he has had 



22 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

all kinds of exciting experiences and can look after 
himself under any conditions. He has not got the 
polish of the East, but he is a gentleman all the 
same, there is no question about that. 

He comes from Idaho, and is taking a month's 
holiday, shooting and fishing on Kootenay Lake. 
He is really a Virginian ; that is where his parents 
came from. His ancestors came over in the 
seventeenth century from somewhere back in Essex 
County, England, and he still feels an affection for 
that far away " Old Country." He likes to come 
now and then for business or pleasure on to 
Canadian soil ; he doesn't want to see the Union 
Jack hauled down and Old Glory raised in its place ; 
he wants to see the two floating side by side in an 
indissoluble alliance. 

Now look at that grizzled old man on the far 
side of the deck. He is a prospector, as tough 
as nails although he must be well over sixty. He 
came from Germany forty years ago, ran away 
from the Army, he says. He has been all oven 
the West, and has forgotten how to speak German, 
but his English is very peculiar even after all these 
years. 

He has been out to Spokane with wonderful 
samples of ore from somewhere up Twelve Mile 
Creek, and has got a igrubstake for the summer, 
so as to drive a tunnel to tap the vein lower down 
and prove the immense orebody which he knows 
is there. He will make several trips up there, 
packing powder, candles, tools and " grub " on his 
back, sixty or seventy pounds at a time, until he 
has all his supplies ready for the summers work. 
Then he will remain up there alone all through 







A MINI >. IMP 




"" I II 




S.S. "KASLO" AT KASLO. 



To face p. 22. 



THE SLOGAN 23 

the summer, right on until the snow comes, and 
perhaps even after that, unless his supplies run out. 

Just beyond him is a Kaslo lady returning from 
a day's shopping in Nelson ; then a nautical -looking 
man, who is managing director of one of the larger 
mines, going up on his monthly visit. Then a 
big, sturdy " fish -eater n from Nova Scotia who is 
shift boss in a mine somewhere in the hills round 
Sandon. Close by are two swarthy Italians, or 
" Dagoes " as they are universally called here, going 
to look for a job " mucking " in some of the mines. 
One of them has not been out long from Naples, 
and can speak no English, so his companion has 
to do all the talking. 

Such are a few of the many varied types that 
may be seen travelling any day in this country. 
* * * * • 

When I was there the K. & S. Railway was 
running, a little narrow-gauge, one-horse show, 
which ran a train three times a week in 
summer between Kaslo and Sandon, and in winter 
whenever possible between snowslides. The one 
excitement of life was the arrival of the train : the 
whole population of Whitewater would gather at 
the depot when the distant whistle announced its 
approach. Then, after discussing the topics of the 
day with each other and with any passengers who 
happened to be on the train, one and all would 
adjourn to the store, which served the additional 
purpose of hotel, saloon, and post-office, there to 
await the distribution of the mail. 

First of all the parcels and papers would be 
sorted out, a long and laborious process, especially 
if there had been no train for a week previously. 



24 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

Then, when the last paper had been sorted, 
finally the letter bag would be opened. As many 
letters for men working in the mine would be 
addressed to unpronounceable names in strange and 
weird writing from somewhere in the backwoods 
of Europe, the sorting was rather a slow job. Soon 
after I went there the train ceased running into 
Sandon, and turned back from McGuigan, five miles 
above Whitewater, so that if you wanted to answer 
a letter in time to catch the train on its return 
trip, there was no time to lose. Why it was con- 
sidered necessary to sort the papers first I could 
never imagine, but nothing would induce them to 
depart from that rule ! 

In winter the line used to be blocked by snow- 
slides half the time. The train would be sent out 
from Kaslo, headed by the " rotary," to plough 
its way through the snow ; perhaps it would get 
as far as Twelve Mile Creek and then have to 
turn back. Frequently it would not reach White- 
water for a week or ten days. 

On one occasion it was struggling in a bad 
snowslide when the shaft of the rotar3 r broke, and 
a new one had to be made in Spokane before 
it could be started again. There was no train 
up to Whitewater for three weeks on that occasion, 
and provisions ran short, so that the men from 
the mines had to be sent down to Kaslo, making 
their way as best they could down the railway 
track over the snowslides. 

Walking through a couple of feet of freshly 
fallen snow is no picnic, but to struggle through 
snow which has thawed and partly packed, and 
then slid, forming loose masses from ten to twenty 



THE SLOGAN 25 

feet deep, well, there are more amusing occu- 
pations ! To sink up to your hips at every step, 
and sometimes deeper, is no joke, especially if you 
have your blankets on your back. 

Where the snow is packed you can use snow- 
shoes if you have, or can beg, borrow, or steal 
any, so long as it is freezing, but towards the 
end of the winter, when the snowslides eome, it 
is generally thawing most of the daytime, and to 
attempt to use snowshoes on wet snow bears a 
strong resemblance to work, and very hard work 
too. 

Of course, to go anywhere away from the railway, 
or a beaten road or trail, when there is six feet 
of snow on the ground, one must use snowshoes 
or skis. The latter form a delightful means of 
getting about where they can be used, but in a 
mountainous and heavily timbered country they can 
not be used very much. 

On moonlight nights I used to put on my snow- 
shoes and lake a ramble up or down the valley, 
drinking in the glory of the enchanted scenery. 
The graceful curves of the cedar boughs with their 
heavy burden of snow ; the dark green of the 
hemlocks and firs standing out sharp and clear 
against the pure white carpet ; the fallen timber 
with its white covering, forming all kinds of 
fantastic shapes ; the snow mushrooms on the big 
stumps ; the weird shadows cast by the moon- 
light ; the mountains with their timbered slopes 
and rocky bluffs, half white, half black, standing 
clear cut against the perfect blue of the sky ; the 
sky itself so clear that you would think the stars 
were only a few miles away ; the delightful, crisp, 



26 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

invigorating air, and the pleasant crunch of the 
dry snow under your feet ; all this forms a fairylike 
scene never to be forgotten. 

And then to think that there are people who 
prefer to sit in the saloon, smoking and drinking 
and playing poker ! 

A man once remarked to me that when he first 
came out from England he used to sit gazing at 
the mountains in speechless admiration, but added 
with a touch of pride, that he very soon got over 
that, and was now unmoved by the most glorious 
scenery. That is the case with many of the people 
here ; they look upon it as a sign of weakness, 
of sentimentality, to be affected by the glories of 
Nature ; they are so absorbed in the petty affairs 
of everyday life that they live among some of the 
most magnificent scenery on God's earth without 
looking at it. They take pride in being practical, 
not sentimental, in being occupied with real life, 
not with imagination ! But which is the real ? The 
moon shone on the snow and on the cedars and 
hemlocks ten thousand years ago, but where were 
the mines then? What was the price of silver 
in New York then? The moon will shine just 
as brightly ten thousands years hence. Where will 
the mines be then? I wonder ! 

* :& * * * 

Then on a glorious summer's day, to climb to 
the top of one of these peaks, eight thousand feet 
above the sea, and look all around, seeing nothing 
but an ocean of mountains in every direction, as 
far as the eye can reach. At your feet, two thousand 
feet below, a beautiful grassy slope, and below that 
the timber. To your right the snow patch which 



THE SLOCAN 27 

you crossed in coming up, and to your left a glacier 
scintillating in the sun. Peaks all around, many 
of which it would puzzle an Alpine climber to 
scale. 

At one place you see a gap in the mountains and 
can, perhaps, catch a glimpse of Slocan Lake ; on 
the other side you can trace the course of Kaslo 
Creek away to the east. Away below you is the 
little hill that looked so high from the valley ; 
it looked as big as the surrounding mountains. 
Near the top you can see several specks. With your 
glasses you distinguish one of these as the portal 
of a mine tunnel with its dump, another is a cabin. 
There two men have been working all the summer, 
a Prince Edward Islander and a Cockney ; last 
week the Cockney came down for their mail and 
a box of candles ; he had some samples of nice 
ore. They are going to stay on there, right on 
until the middle of November, to open it up and 
prove the length of the orebody. 

Farther oil you see the cabin where the Captain 
lives with his dog. He has not been down since 
he went up there in May. Last Sunday I was 
up on that hill and looked in on him, taking his 
mail, one letter, which had been lying about for 
three weeks. He wanted me to take a photograph 
of the view up the vallev from his tunnel, but the 
sun was in the wrong direction, so nothing would 
satisfy him but I must stop the night and take 
the view in the morning. 

He was a captain in the Prussian Army once, 
but left for reasons which are only hinted at ; 
something about a court-martial that he thought 
it wise not to wait for. Anyway, he left the 



28 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

countiw in a hurry. But all that is many \ T ears ago, 
and out here nobody asks any questions. To see 
him now you would think that he had been born 
and bred a prospector in the wild and woolly West. 
And as for his crime, whatever that may have 
been, well, that is buried in the past ; this is a 
country in which a man can make a fresh start 
in life, and as long as he behaves himself here, 
nobody is going to inquire too closely into his 
past. If the truth were known you would be 
surprised to find how many there are who could 
not afford to find fault with each other's antece- 
dents ! And there is not a gentler or a kinder- 
hearted man than the Captain in the whole country. 
You should have seen him last spring when his 
dog was ill ! 

At the foot of the hill you catch a glimpse of 
a patch of water sparkling in the sun. That is 
Bear Lake, and just beyond it, invisible from 
here, is Fish Lake, a great place for trout and 
an ideal spot in the long summer evenings. What 
could be more delightful than to walk up there 
about half-past five, while the sun is still on the 
water, take Scottie's rickety little boat out into the 
lake, and have a plunge into the deliciously cool 
water? And then to have a brisk row round the 
lake. 

There are any amount of beaver there ; one 
evening two of us were out in the boat, and we 
gave chase to one. When we got within twenty 
yards of him, flap went his tail with a report 
like a gun, and he had vanished, to reappear after 
several minutes two hundred yards away in the 
opposite direction to that in which he had been 




WIIIII-WAI I K DEPOT. \MMI R. 




WINTER SCENERY 



To face p. 28. 



THE SLOCAN 29 

swimming. Rowing after him again, this was 
repeated a number of times, the wily creature 
going in a different direction each time, for they 
will never by any chance go towards their " house " 
when there is an enemy in sight. 

The lake is well slocked with trout, but sport 
is very variable. Sometimes you will pull out fish as 
fast as you can cast your fly ; on other occasions 
you may spend hours without a bite. And it 
doesn't always seem to depend on the weather or 
the light. 

We must not forget to look in on Scottie before 
going back ; we shall probably find him digging 
potatoes, but he will ask us into the house to have 
a cup of lea. He came out from Scotland nobody 
knows how long ago. In the palmy days, when 
Bear Lake was quite a lively place, he used to 
keep an hotel and store. The only remaining out- 
ward and visible sign of this departed glory is 
the legend " Miners' Exchang in large letters 

across the front ol" his house. Now he just carries 
on the tc ranch, " which consists of a potato field, 
a vegetable garden, and a poultry run, from which 
he supplies some of the neighbouring mines with 
vegetables and eggs. 

Then on the way back what a feast of berries 
you can have ! Firs! come the salmon berries and 
then the raspberries ; later on luscious blackcaps 
and genuine blackberries, sweet and juicy. Most 
plentiful, especially up on the mountain sides, are 
the delicious huckleberries and blueberries ; and 
lastly, in the fall, come the big, juicy black currants, 
the most refreshing of all on a hot day. 

Nature is prodigal in her supply of berries ; you 



30 



THE CALL OF THE WEST 



can go up the mountain side to a huckleberry 
patch and fill as many baskets or buckets as you 
can carry, then boil them down with sugar, and 
put them up in jars for the rest of the year. 



It is comical to see a chipmunk eating a huckle- 
berry. It will sit on its haunches on a twig, hold 
the berry with its two hands and nibble at it, 
first one side and then the other, taking several 
minutes to devour a single berry, while you have 
to take at least half a dozen at a mouthful in order 
to taste them at all. 

But perhaps I ought to explain what a chip- 
munk is ; one gets so used to them here as part 
of the scheme of things that one forgets that there 
are benighted people at home who don't know 
what they are. 

Well, it is a little animal something like a 
squirrel, but rather smaller, light brown or 
reddish, with a dark stripe down each side. It 
makes a peculiar chirping noise which apparently 
comes out of its tail, judging by the way it moves 
while making that sound. There are millions of 
them all through the forest ; their chirping makes 
the place alive. It would otherwise be very silent, 
as there are no song birds. 

One got into my bedroom once through the 
window. I managed to catch him in order to 
have a closer look at him, but it certainty was a 
job. I had to use a bath towel to capture him 
with, and even then his claws and teeth went 
through it like pins. Talk about cats ! For- 
tunately his claws are not quite so sharp as a cat's, 
but they certainly do dig in ! 



THE SLOCAN 31 

In the fall the chipmunks lay in a store of fir 
cones and retire into holes in the trees where they 
hibernate through the winter. If they lay in their 
stores early, a hard winter is predicted. 

There is another very common animal of the 
squirrel family, the ground squirrel, generally called 
a gopher here, although I believe that name is 
used for quite a different animal in California. 
It is about the size of a large rat, and burrows 
like a rabbit. You can see them alongside the 
trail or the railway track, wherever there is cleared 
ground, sitting erect on their haunches, on the 
look-out, absolutely still, like miniature statues. 
They remind one of pictures of penguins, allowing 
for the difference of colour. 

Then there is the groundhog or whistler , you 
don't see these so often, but on the high ground 
above the timber line their shrill whistle is con- 
tinually sounding. It sounds exactly like a man 
whistling. 

Now and then you come across a porcupine, an 
ungainly creature, notable not only for his wonder- 
ful protection of quills, but also for his voracious 
appetite and omnivorous propensities. Whole 
boxes of candles disappear when Mr. Porky finds 
his way into the cabin ; even " powder M does not 
escape him. It is a peculiar taste, but the soft, 
gelatinous sticks of dynamite seem to have a 
particular attraction for Mr. Porky. 

A more disagreeable neighbour is that beautiful 
little striped animal, the skunk. Beware of him ! 
He will not bite, he won't even touch you, but 
it you venture too near him you wont be fit to 
go near a human being for a fortnight. 



32 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

He must be treated with respect. If he comes 
near your cabin or your tent, don't interfere with 
him ; just let him take his time. You dare not even 
shoot him, or the place will not be fit to live in ; 
you can remove the body, but the scent will remain. 

There are bears, too, in this country, lots of them, 
although they keep out of the way of human 
beings pretty well. You often see and smell the 
places where they have been, especially about the 
huckleberry patches in the berry season, for they 
too are passionately fond of those delicious berries. 
The black and brown bears will always keep out 
of your way, and never attack unless you actually 
step on one while going through the bush, or 
possibly if they have cubs about ; so when going 
through long grass or thick brush, make all the 
noise you can. 

The silver -tip or grizzly, however, is not so shy. 
and doesn't mind having a go at you. The usual 
method of procedure if a silver-tip is unexpectedly 
encountered at a bend in the trail, is to return the 
way you came, or any other way that happens to 
be clear, at an increased speed, in fact at the very 
highest speed that you are capable of. I have 
never had that amusing experience myself, but am 
told that, in spite of the bear's ungainly appear- 
ance, a man has a pretty tough job to outrun one 
even in the clear, and when it comes to going 
through thick brush the betting is distinctly in 
favour of Mr. Bruin. He is a pretty good hand at 
climbing trees too. 

Cougars, or mountain lions, better known in 
Europe under the name of panther, should also be 
avoided when one is not looking for trouble. 



THE SLOCAN 33 

The principal object of sport in this country 
is the Rocky Mountain goat, a fine animal with 
magnificent horns. They arc met with in the 
mountains lo the north of Kaslo Creek, but the 
great hunting ground is lo the east of Kootenay 
Lake. The goat's chief amusement is to balance 
itself on inaccessible peaks and look round over 
the country. The method of stalking Mr. Goat is 
. to manoeuvre so as to get above him if he is not 
already on the highest point \ and roll rocks down 
towards him. A goat will always go upwards in 
the presence of danger, and you may thus get within 
shot. 

Of course, if you should happen to kill him 
you must be prepared for the 1 act that he will 
fall some two thousand feel in a direction in which 
it is impossible for you to descend without going 

several miles round, bill that is pari of the game. 

* t • * 

Bird life is not very strongly represented here ; 
now and then you see a beautiful woodpecker or a 
blue jay, and occasionally, in the height of summer, 
an exquisitely coloured little humming-bird, more 

like an insecl than a bird. 

But the most interesting birds are the grouse. 
During the fall there are lots of willow grouse 
among the timber, particularly where the huckle- 
berries are, for these birds also, like the chipmunk 
and the bear, are attracted by those sweet little 
berries. I may mention in passing that the term 
huckleberry is applied to a variety of blueberry 
[anglice whortleberry), darker and of a more 
purple colour than the regular blueberry, and much 
sweeter and more juicy, bul I have heard the name 

3 
I 



34 THE CALL OF THE WEST 






< 



used on Vancouver Island for a bright scarlet berry, 
and have not been able to discover which is 
correct. 

The willow grouse is a very easy bird to shoot, 
and makes excellent eating. Nobody shoots for 
" sport " ; I don't believe there is a shot-gun in 
the country. The regulation way is to take 
a " twenty -two " rifle and get as near the bird ,, 
as you can. If he is running, then, like the foreign 
prince once pictured in Punch, you wait till he , 
stops and then take a shot at him. If you are a 
crack shot you shoot off his head, otherwise you 
let fly at him anywhere, and trust to luck. 

The blue grouse is a much more gamey bird, 
keeping higher up. While his cousin is down 
among the huckleberries he is to be found above j 
the timber line, and is pretty hard to stalk. 

Prospectors and miners who dwell up in the , 
mountains always take a twenty-two, and eke out , 
their grub supply by the welcome addition of a , 
grouse, familiarly known as a chicken, now and ; 
then. 

For a year I was " batching," that is to say, 
doing all my own cooking, in addition to 
performing the duties of housemaid. All my 
previous knowledge of cooking consisted in boiling = 
eggs and making tea, but in the West some 
knowledge of the culinary art is essential ; you 
are liable to be thrown on your own resources 
at any time, and how utterly helpless a man is 
who cannot even cook his own meals ! And it 
was an interesting experience. 

Bread could usually be obtained from the store, ; 



THE SLOCAN 35 

but I wanted to learn that part of the game also, 
and made my own for the first six months, until 
I became proficient, that is to say, until I became 
fairly certain that an eatable product would result 
from my efforts. 

Some of my first efforts were truly weird ; it 
is scarcely an exaggeration to say that when I had 
visitors, sometimes they asked for bread and I gave 
them a stone ! However, when the bread was not 
quite what it ought to have been, there was always 
the miner's regular stand-by to fall back upon, 
namely baking-powder biscuits. These have no 
resemblance to biscuits as known in the Old 
Country, being more of the nature of hot rolls. 
There is a certain kind of biscuit, known I 
believe in the Old Country as water crackers, of 
which there is always a supply on the table. These 
are known here simply as crackers, and when a 
cheechahko, fresh from the Old Land, is asked to 
pass the biscuits, he naturally seizes these, a 
mistake which is absolutely incomprehensible to the 
Canadians. 

My cakes were highly successful ; I used to make 

all kinds of combinations with excellent results. 

On one occasion when there were some visitors 

coming, while attending to something else I forgot 

the cakes, like King Alfred, until they were badly 

' burnt on lop. But a brilliant idea occurred to me : 

! there happened to be some icing sugar on hand, 

i so I seized the cook-book and looked up the formula 

| for icing, hurriedly scraped the burnt portion off 

i the cakes, and iced them all, with the result that 

my proficiency in cake -making was highly 

eulogized, and ever afterwards icing was a familiar 



36 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

feature in my cakes, even when they were not 
burnt ! 

One summer there was a party of the Geological 
Survey in camp close by for six weeks, and that 
was great company. Many a jolly evening was 
spent either in their camp or at my place, regaled 
by striring tales of Hudson's Bay or the Yukon, 
the wilds of Northern Ontario or of British 
Columbia, hairbreadth escapes from bears, pleasing 
interviews with skunks, perilous canoe trips over 
rapids, and all kinds of exciting adventures. For 
work on the Geological Survey of Canada is not 
child's play by any means. 

Generally, when visitors came to dinner they 
would find me in my shirt-sleeves peeling the 
potatoes, and all would take their coats off and 
lend a hand to get the dinner ready ; there was 
no formality about it ! And after dinner all would 
set to with the washing up. 

The few women in such a place always take pity 
on the poor bachelors ; many a little delicacy have 
I had from my Swedish neighbours, a miner and 
his wife, with three dear little girls who rejoice 
in jaw -breaking polysyllabic names. Then there 
were the mine foreman, an Ohio man, and his 
charming Lancashire wife, my particular friends. 
Many and many a happy evening have I spent 
with them ; and as for their little children, why, 
white-headed Joe was the real boss of the camp ; 
there was not a man in the place but was devoted 
to him. And his little sister is coming on apace 
too ; she will be a militant suffragette before long ! 

But the greatest help I had in my culinary efforts 
was from Hard Ground Henry. He is a well-known 



THE SLOGAN 37 

character throughout the Slocan. Short and not at 
all stout, but deep chested and as strong as a bull, 
he will do a day's work against any man in the 
country, and, whether he is working for himself 
or for wages, he will do a good honest day's work. 
Obstinate as Mephistopheles, he will argue all night 
on any earthly subject, but he will never lose his 
temper. When little more than a boy, he left his 
home back in Ontario and has since been all over 
the West ; Montana, Idaho, Oregon, California, back 
in New Ontario, West again to Washington, and 
now British Columbia. And he has seen some pretty 
tough places in his time, and been up against all 
kinds of hard characters, but beneath all his rough- 
ness he has all the instincts of a gentleman, and if 
any one wants help, Hard Ground Henry will be the 
first not merely to olfer help, but to go right in 
and begin helping. 

When he was not working up in the mountains 
we frequently visited each other, and had many 
long talks on all sorts of subjects, for Hard Ground 
Henry is not only a philosopher but has also an 
extensive knowledge of literature, being an 
omnivorous reader. 

He it was who helped me with my cooking ; he 
taught me how to make baking-powder biscuits ; 
he told me not to take any notice of Mrs. Beeton's 
nine eggs for a cake, but to use four to a pound 
of flour for a standard cake basis, which could 
be varied in an infinite number of ways ; he 
showed me holw to prepare the fiddle-head fern 
so as to make greens as delicate as spinach ; he 
instructed me in the proper way of preparing and 
frying trout (for that was before I became a 



38 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

vegetarian) ; he taught me how to make sourdough, 
from which excellent bread can be made without 
either baking-powder or yeast, a regular prospector's 
stunt ; he showed me how to make hot cakes, that 
typically American dainty, which I understand orig- 
inally came from Yorkshire; he taught me the 
names and uses of many weird kitchen implements, 
and showed me the correct procedure in washing 
up. In short, if it hadn't been for Hard Ground 
Henry, my " batching " would never have been the 
success that it was. 

* * * * * 

But my principal pal during the last year was 
the Assay er, a McGill man, and a thorough 
Canadian, having been born on Vancouver Island, 
of an Irish -American father and a Welsh mother. 

With an inexhaustible fund of songs and jokes, 
and an equally inexhaustible supply of good spirits, 
he brings cheer and sunshine wherever he goes. 
He used to come down to my place regularly two i 
or three evenings a week, summer or winter, 
generally accompanied by the Shift-boss, a big Nova ) 
Scotian " Fish -eater," as the inhabitants of that r 
maritime province are called, six feet tall and then 
some, and broad in proportion, and we would sit. 
down to a game of slough. It is a fine game, as 
good as bridge, but I have never met any one who 
knew it except in the West. It is sometimes called 
solo, but is quite a different game from the solo in 
Hoyle. The Shift -boss was the expert, the Assay er 
and I the learners. When we got tired of slough 
we would play freeze -out or whisky poker. Some- 
times two or three others would come in, and wt 
would have an exciting game of poker, but only foi 



THE SLOCAN 39 

chips— money never entered into our games ; there? 
was plenty of gambling elsewhere for those who 
wanted it. 

Then when it was over they would make their 
way up the hill again. Unless there was a moon, 
each man would carry a " hug." It sounds rather 
startling at first, but it is a universal practice, and 
merely refers to a lantern made out of a lard pail 
or other suitable tin, carried in a horizontal 
position, with a candle stuck through the lower side. 
They make very good lamps, and cau stand a pretty 
strong wind, but your candle must be long enough 
to last as long as you are going to be out, and a 
good tight fit ; if it falls out on a dark night you 
are " up against it." 

When the snow is on the ground it is easier to 
see where you are going in a general way, but a 
trail in the snow is very difficult to see at night 
even if it is sunk two feet below the level of the 
surrounding snow ; and if you lose the candle out 
of your bug, and have not taken the precaution 
to bring a spare one, you may flounder up to your 
waist in snow without seeing the trail close beside 
you ; it all looks so much alike, and the shadows 
are so very deceiving. 

The snow on the trails becomes pressed down 
hard, and by the time the surrounding snow is 
five or six feet deep on the ground, the trails are 
generally sunk to a depth of two or three feet 
below the general surface. Towards the end of 
the winter, when the snow is going away, the hard 
snow on the trails is the last to melt, and these 
are left standing up as ridges. It then becomes a 
question of balancing oneself on the trail, with 



40 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

frequent slips into a foot or two of wet, slushy 
snow. 

That is the worst part of the winter ; as long 
as the snow is dry it is all right, but when it 
becomes slushy it is horrible. Leather boots are 
no use at all ; ordinary rubbers are no good in 
deep snow ; gum boots are heavy and cumbersome, 
and the only satisfactory way to keep one's feet 
dry is to wear " arctics "—contrivances of felt worn 
over ordinaiw boots — and even these are not proof 
against the wet snow for very long, although 
excellent in dry snow. 

For a short period in the fall, after the snow 

has come to stay but before it is deep enough for 

sleighing, wagon traffic has to be suspended and 

sleigh traffic cannot be commenced. There is a 

corresponding period in the spring when the snow 

is disappearing. During these two periods those 

supplies which it is absolutely necessary to take 

up to the mines have to be transported by pack 

mules. Each mule will carry two hundred pounds, 

but this is rather a slow process compared to wagons 

or sleighs, and when these periods are approaching 

a good stock of everything is laid in, so that as 

little as possible will have to be taken up in 

this way. 

* * * * * 

Besides the discomfort and inconvenience arising 
from the wet snow, it is during the spring, from 
March until May, when the snowslides occur, 
blocking up roads and railways, with their inevit- 
able toll of casualties. 

The railways are protected by snow sheds at 
the worst points where snowslides occur regularly, 



THE SLOCAN 41 

but sometimes they come in unexpected places. On 
the main line of the C.P.R., which is well protected 
in this way. there was a fearful accident a few 
years ago. A gang of men, about thirty of them, 
were shovelling snow off the line near Roger's 
Pass, when a second slide came in the same place 
and buried them all. In the Cascades, in the State 
of Washington, a Great Northern train was caught 
in a tunnel, both ends being blocked by slides, 
and a number of people were suffocated by the 
smoke before they could dig a passage out. 
Since then that section of the line has been 
electrified to avoid the possibility of such a catas- 
trophe happening again. 

This is the worst feature of the winter in moun- 
tainous districts, not the cold. As long as there 
is no wind— and there seldom is any to speak of in 
this part of the country — you feel the cold very 
little. I have felt it less at twenty below zero 
than in England at a few degrees below freezing 
point. 

9 * * * « 

It takes something to keep a house warm in 
the winter, though. A good log cabin keeps in 
the heat, but a frame building, unless it is very 
well constructed, with tar paper between the boards, 
although more pretentious, is not nearly so service- 
able in the cold weather. 

I had to keep a large Queen Heater going night 
and da,y for nearly four months, and a smaller 
one in another room for over two months, and 
by day only for much longer still. It took a good 
half-hour every day chopping wood for these and 
the cook-stove. 



42 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

Of course, the stove-pipes had to be cleaned out 
periodically, for they soon get choked up with soot, 
and sometimes they will " sweat," that is to say, 
that tarry matter distilled from the wood collects 
in the horizontal portions of the pipes and leaks at 
the joints, making no end of a mess in the room ! 
I used to fill the stoves as full as they could be 
packed with green wood every night before going 
to bed, and close off the air so that the wood 
smouldered all night, keeping the room nice and 
warm, but this process caused an awful lot of 
sweating in the pipes ! 

Sometimes in the middle of the night I would 
hear the water boiling in the heater, and on going 
into the big room would find the top of the stove 
red-hot, the air supply not having been completely 
closed off. On those occasions Tige would become 
very uneasy, but it never seemed to occur to him 
to come into my bedroom and attract my attention. 
He was a mongrel fox-terrier, my constant 
companion on all nry rambles and the best of 
company, but he came from a family in which 
there was a predilection for fits, and one hot day 
the poor little fellow was carried off by one. 

In order to clean the pipes the stove had to 
be damped down, the pipes disconnected, and each 
length scraped out. That was all right, but then 
they had to be put together again. The pipe from 
the smaller stove had three elbows and passed 
through two partition walls. Only one whose bad 
karma has placed him in a similar position can 
realize what it means to put that together again 
single - handed. A parson once declared that 
swearing was a deadly sin on all other occasions, 




THE MILL, WHITEWATER MINE. 




PACK MULES. 



To face p. 42. 



THE SLOCAN 43 

but that when putting up stove-pipes a free dis- 
pensation was granted to swear ad lib. ! 

* * * * * 

And the water-pipes ! Never shall I forget the 
times I have had with frozen pipes ; the hours 
I have spent crawling about in the space under 
the house, locating frozen or burst pipes, replacing 
them, and covering them over with sawdust or 
manure, very often only to have to take the same 
pipe out again a day or two afterwards, and doing 
all these operations doubled up in all kinds of fancy 
positions by the light of a candle dimly burning ! 

The water was laid on from a spring a quarter 
of a mile away on the other side of the river. The 
supply pipe froze on me twice ; on one occasion 
I was three weeks without water. I had two men 
working on the pipeline most of the time, and 
finally, with the aid of a liberal use of coal -oil 
and waste, and a vast amount of perseverance, we 
got the water to run again. 

Then the waste-pipes would freeze and have to 
be dug out and thawed. If a tap was not left 
slightly open day and night during a cold snap it 
would freeze, and probably a pipe would burst, 
so that when a waste-pipe froze it was necessary 
to put a hose on to the corresponding tap to carry 
off the water while* the waste-pipe was being 
thawed out. Sometimes, if a waste-pipe was only 
slightly frozen it could be caught in time by 
pouring hot water down it, but it frequently meant 
a trip under the house, and verj^ likely also digging 
through six feet of snow and nine inches of earth 
outside, and laying the pipe bare in order to apply 
coal -oil and waste. 



44 THE GALL OF THE WEST 

Those water-pipes certainly were the joy of my 
life during the winter ! The first indication of a 
frozen supply would be the water boiling in the 
heater. When that ominous sound occurred there 
would be an anxious moment until one of the taps 
was tried, so as to ascertain whether the main 
supply-pipe was frozen or only the one supplying 
the heater. 

Another source of trouble was the snow on the 
roofs. But this could always be kept in hand ; it 
was not a constant source of anxiety like the water- 
pipes. If allowed to accumulate too much the 
weight of the snow would break a roof in, but 
a periodical shovelling prevents such a mishap 
from occurring. 

Sometimes, however, after a heavy fall of snow, 
the shovelling has to be done in a hurry, and I 
have several times had to pitch in and do it myself 
in order to relieve the pressure on the roof. Freshly 
fallen snow is light and flaky, and is very unsatis- 
factory to deal with ; it is like trying to shovel 
feathers. Packed snow, when dry, is easy to 
handle ; you can get a decent load at each shovel- 
ful. But wet snow, well, it would be hard to 
imagine a more heartbreaking job than shovelling 
wet snow. You dig your shovel in, and with an 
effort detach a chunk of snow, laboriously raise 
it up, and heave. But instead of the snow sliding 
freely off your shovel, it clings to it, and your shovel 
falls down still bearing its load of snow ! Then 
you have to scrape it off laboriously. It is indeed 
miserable work. 

The heat of the house causes the layer of snow 
next the roof to thaw, trickling down to the eaves, 



THE SLOGAN 45 

where it becomes frozen into a fringe of ice 
extending along the whole length of the roof, and 
from which icicles descend at intervals. To break 
off this ice fringe needs an axe, and the shingles 
of the roof are liable to get damaged in the process. 
The windows are also liable to get damaged by 
the falling icicles unless one is careful. 

Perhaps the greatest bugbear of the Slocan, in 
common with most densely timbered countries, is 
one not connected with the winter, but with the 
summer, namely the fear of forest fires. When 
a lire is once started it is practically impossible 
to check it. If there is a wind it will spread 
with inconceivable rapidity, and sweep awa}' every- 
thing in its course, leaping across rivers and 
clearings which one would have thought would stop 
the progress of any fire. The British Columbian 
Government is doing everything possible to prevent 
the occurrence of forest fires, and to cope with 
them when once started, when that is at all possible, 
by having the country patrolled by fire wardens, 
whose duty it is, among other things, to nip in 
the bud any fire started. 

In spite of all precautions, however, after a dry 
summer forest fires occur all over the country, 
and the smoke renders the atmosphere hazy for 
hundreds of miles. The most frequent cause of 
fires is undoubtedly the carelessness of some people 
in neglecting to extinguish their camp fires when 
leaving. Such a fire, smouldering, will creep along 
among the grass and brush, attacking the roots of 
trees, which are followed until the trunks themselves 
are reached. Then, if the tree is a cedar, the 



46 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

silently smouldering fire will burst into flame and 
leap up the dry bark in a moment, setting fire 
to the branches. Other trees are attacked more 
slowly, but none the less surely. 

After hours of labour one may succeed in 
smothering the visible fire if it is tackled early 
enough, but the roots may go on smouldering for 
days, and the fire break out in another place after 
it had been believed to be extinguished. 

Few scenes more desolate can be imagined than 
a tract of country after a forest fire. Miles and 
miles of hillside covered with gaunt grey stubs, 
partly charred, looking like the bristles of some 
gigantic brush. And the ground between one 
continuous network of fallen logs, rendering 
progress a matter of great difficulty. The place 
may remain in this condition for many years before 
a new growth appears. 

But everywhere in the track of a fire, almost 
before the fire is out, there springs up the fire- 
weed with its pretty purple blossoms, pretty while 
the flower lasts, but a most infernal nuisance after- 
wards, as the downy seed is so thick that in 
walking through a patch of fireweed it is raised 
in a cloud, floating about everywhere and sticking 
to all your clothes. It spreads all over the place, 
and grows so quickly that trails get completely 
blocked up by it in no time. 

The Slocan lias had its share of fires ; the 
greater part of the north side of the valley of Kaslo 
Creek is bare of living trees. The south side, getting 
less sun, does not get so dried up and has fared 
better. j 

The summer of 1910 was exceptionally dry, and 



THE SLOGAN 47 

forest fires raged throughout the North -West. One 
of these occurred in this valley and wiped several 
mining camps off the face of the earth, but fortu- 
nately with only a very small toll of casualties. 
Houses, mine structures, mills, 1 railway bridges, and 
everything made of wood vanished completely. At 
the time I was away up in the Lillooet country, 
and when I got back to civilization the first thing 
I learnt was that my late home had all gone up 
in smoke, and that there was nothing to go back to ! 

It transpired later that through the kind offices 
of friends, nearly all my property had been collected 
and sent off on the last train, on which the 
inhabitants had saved themselves and their mov- 
able goods before the fire reached the place. 

So ended my sojourn in the Slocan. 

* * * H: * 

1 Ore-dressing establishments. 



CHAPTER II 

THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 

Lillooet is one of the oldest towns in British 
Columbia, having been an old place long before 
Vancouver was ever thought of. In the old days 
it was an important place, being on the great 
Cariboo Road, but with the construction of the 
C.P.R. the channels of traffic were completely 
altered ; Lillooet was side-tracked, and has re- 
mained a sleepy little village ever since. 

The famous Cariboo Road was built by a party 
of Royal Engineers in the fifties, in the days of 
the great gold rush, when British Columbia, then 
called New Caledonia, was still a Crown Colony. 
A branch road from Ashcroft, on the C.P.R., joins 
the Cariboo Road at Clinton, cutting Lillooet out 
altogether, and Ashcroft is now the jumping-off 
place, but a reminder of the old order of things 
exists in the naming of the road -houses, which are 
designated 03' their distance in miles from Lillooet, 
as 150 Mile House, and so forth. 

The little town is on the right bank of the 
Fraser, forty-two miles above Lytton, the nearest 
railway station, from which it is reached by stage. 

The journey from Vancouver to Lytton is pro- 
foundly interesting, for wherever one may travel 
in B.C., it is impossible to get away from beautiful 
scenery of one kind or another. 

48 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 49 

Leaving Vancouver in the morning, one travels 
for three hours up the lower Fraser Valley, that rich 
farming country immediately tributary to Van- 
couver. At midday Hope is reached ; one sees 
no village, only a little station, and wonders what 
it was put there for. But the town, such as it is, is 
down on the flat ground among the trees, three- 
quarters of a mile away on the other side of the 
river, and in the old days Hope was one of the 
most important points in British Columbia, being 
the head of navigation on the lower reaches of 
the Fraser. 

Long before Vancouver appeared on the face of 
the map, men came up the river from New West- 
minster to Hope, there to start oil' on the four 
hundred mile tramp up into the great Cariboo 
country. 

Hope was then a town of considerable impor- 
tance, and many tales arc told of the wild 
happenings in those days. 

The Cariboo Road extended all the way from 
New Westminster, past Hope, thence through the 
Fraser River Canon to Lytton and on to Lillooet, 
where it left the river for a time, passing over 
the high ground to the east, back again to the 
river at Soda Creek, where it is once more navigable, 
and so on to Quesnel, and thence up to Barkerville, 
the metropolis of the Cariboo. Its history would 
alford stirring reading, but that is another story. 

Since the construction of the C.P.R. that portion 
passing through the canon, between Hope and 
Lytton, has been abandoned, and one sees relics 
of it here and there from the train on the far side 
of the canon, a streak along the face of an almost 

4 



50 THE CALL OF THE WEST 



i 



perpendicular cliff, a flimsy looking bridge across 
a gully, half-destroyed by time, a bit of cribbing 
to support the road along the side of a precipice ; 
it looks scarcely possible for any one to have 
travelled over such a road, and reached the end 
of the journey alive ! 

We are passing through the Coast Range now 
the Fraser has cut a deep canon through this range 
of mountains, so narrow and steep as to present 
a hard problem to road and railway engineers. 
At one point the river cannot be fifty feet wide ; 
it hardly seems conceivable that this is the same 
mighty river which flows in solemn majesty past 
New Westminster seventy miles below, or the same 
which flows calmly, three hundred yards wide, past 
Fort George, three hundred and fifty miles above. 
It surely must be very deep here, and the current is 
obviously strong : the water is simply boiling, in 
seething whirlpools, among the rocks. 

It is a glorious sight, this canon ; each bend 
of the line brings some fresh beauty into view. 
At one point we cross to the other side, and can 
look right down over the side of the trestle bridgel 
into the foaming torrent below. The grotesquely 
shaped rocks, the boiling rapids, the eddies and 
whirlpools, the falls with incessantly flying spray, 
the deep pools, no one knows how deep. Imagine 
the fate of a canoe in such waters ! 

And yet there are people who will sleep, or read 
the paper, or play cards, without so much as a 
glance out of the window ! 

There scarcely seems room for one railway 
through this canon, and yet another is being built 
the Canadian Northern Pacific will soon be running 



& £ 



' s - 




THE FRASER AT HOPE. 




CROSSING A ROCKSLIDE. 




ON THE TRAIL. 



To face p. 50. 



c 






THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 51 

trains along the opposite side. 1 And where the 
C.P.R. crosses over to the left bank, the C.N. P. 
has to cross to the right, for there is certainly 
not room for two on one side. One admires the 
ingenuity and perseverance, and marvels at the 
difficulties overcome by the engineers and con- 
struction gangs of the C.N. P. in their perilous 
task. But, hard as it is, they have an immense 
advantage which their predecessors on the C.P.R. 
never had. They have an existing railway close 
at hand, so that they can travel in comfort, and 
deliver supplies at points all along this section of 
the route. When the C.P.R. was under construction 
they had no such facilities, being hundreds of 
miles from their base of supplies. 

How little one realizes this when sitting in a 
comfortable observation car. How many lives have 
been sacrificed in order that we might travel in 
comfort and see this magnificent scenery without 
exertion ! Let us give a thought in passing to 
those brave pioneers who toiled amid such dangers 
and hardships. 

***** 

Leaving Lytton on the stage early in the morning, 
the Thompson River is crossed by a substantial 
timber bridge, and the road follows the left bank 
of the Fraser. In places the hillside is almost 
precipitous, and on rounding a sharp bend one 
oilers up a silent prayer that the stage may not 
overturn and land us in the river five hundred 
feet below, for the driver takes a fiendish delight 
in dashing along at a breakneck speed, much to 
the discomfiture of the poor passengers. 

1 This line was opened for trans-continental traffic in 
November 1915. 



52 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

Then we come to a gully ; a wild career down 
to the right, an appallingly sharp bend over the 
narrow bridge, and up on the other side, gaining 
as much height as possible before the horses are 
compelled to break into a walk, panting and 
streaming with perspiration. 

The road is dusty, and it is as well to wear your 
very oldest clothes for such a trip, or else to put on 
your " digging clothes " before you leave Lytton. 
If you wear a good suit it will be ruined, for the 
dust gets into everything and will not come out. 

In the valley below we see beautiful flats, i 
some cultivated, but mostly untouched. This is 
a dry country, and needs irrigation, but surely 
the flow of the river could be made use of to raise 
water to irrigate the rich soil of the valley lands. 

Half-way we stop at a ranch to change teams 
and have our midday meal. The country is more 
open here, the valley being wide, and we see an 
example of what can be done with the soil. 
Hay in profusion, and vegetables, such vegetables ! 
At table we get delicious new-laid eggs, and potatoes, 
carrots, turnips, peas, greens. I don't know how 
many different kinds of vegetables, all fresh and 
juicy, such a change after city fare and canned 
vegetables. And this is followed by fresh fruit 
and cream, real thick, sweet cream, that has never 
seen a can. What would one not give for such 
a meal in Vancouver ! 

But we must move on, for the fresh team is 
hitched up and the driver is waiting. We pass 
more ranches, and there are people travelling on 
the road ; at one ranch a woman gets on and rides 
four miles to visit a neighbour. The sun is hot 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 53 

and the dust very thick, and the jolting is rather 
a trial, but it is a glorious trip for all that. 

The afternoon wears on, and presently we see 
a broad green flat extending for a mile or so on 
the other side of the river, and on it a cluster of 
houses. We go right past it ; the cluster of houses 
develops into a little village of one long street with 
a church at the end. It is Lillooet, but we have 
to go another mile to the bridge, and then we 
turn back and dash up in fine style into the village. 

A long, wide, sandy street with broad side- 
walks, and people sitting about on the edge of 
the sidewalk or on chairs in front of the two 
hotels ; nobody seems to have anything to do but 
to sit in the shadiest place he can find and smoke. 

The country is green all round where it is under 
cultivation, for, when it is irrigated, this Fraser 
Valley soil is most fertile. They grow three crops 
of hay here, and fruit and vegetables galore. 
But it is too far from the railway, and nothing can 
be sent to market. They are waiting, however, 
for there is soon to be a railway built from North 
Vancouver up through the rich Pemberton Meadows 
past here, and on up the Fraser Valley to Fort 
George. 1 When that is built Lillooet will come into 
its own. 

***** 

I have to go a hundred and fifty miles to the 
north-west among the mountains, and have to 
arrange for a pack-train. Mr. Falconer, the pros- 
pector who is to accompairy me, arranges with 
a breed, Schwartz, a famous hunting guide, to 
conduct the party. We need four horses for the 
1 Now called Prince George. 



54 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

dunnage and provisions, the former including a 
portable canvas boat, for we are going on a lake 
on which no white man has yet been. With a 
horse apiece for us, and one for Tommy, the little 
Indian boy whom Schwartz brings to help with 
the horses, that makes eight. He has another mare, 
and, although she is not required, she comes along 
too, not wanting to be left behind, and so the 
cavalcade starts off, three men an;d a boy with 
nine horses. 

We follow the trail out to the confluence of the 
Bridge River with the Fraser, and follow the former 
up as far as the mouth of the North Fork. We 
only make about twenty miles a day, making no 
midday halt, and stopping between three and four 
o'clock, when we unpack the horses and turn them 
out to graze, hobbling them if there is any likeli- 
hood of their straying far to seek better pasture. 

To ride a packhorse is not a pleasant experience 
at first ; on the first day out I was most uncomfort- 
able and got very sore, but that was because I 
was trying to use my knees in the usual way. I 
soon learned that the only way to accommodate 
oneself to their peculiar jog-trot is the cowboy 
seat, namely, to put your whole weight in the 
stirrups and just bump, keeping your knees quite 
clear of the saddle. It is a peculiar sensation at 
first, but soon becomes quite comfortable. 

The loading of a packhorse is an art only to be 
acquired after long years of practice. To arrange 
the bundles so that they will not come undone and 
will lie comfortably on the horse, to balance the 
weight equally on both sides, not too high and not 
too low, and finally to fasten the pack in place 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 55 

by means of that fearful and wonderful work of 
art, the diamond hitch ; well, one lifetime is hardly 
enough to become a proficient packer ! 

On the higher ground, away from the Fraser, 
we get into the bull pine country, still dry, with 
only a little dried-up bunch grass in patches, but 
dotted with elegant bull-pines, whose bright 
orange-coloured bark in lozenge-shaped slabs, edged 
with dark brown, and spreading, irregular branches 
with large tufts of dark green needles, give them 
a very picturesque appearance. 

Now and again in the narrow Bridge River valley 
the trail crosses a rock-slide. We have to go over 
it warily, one at a time, lest a careless step should 
start a slide and land us in the bottom of the valley, 
two hundred feet below. But these Indian horses, 
or " cayooses," are very sure -footed, and no such 
mishap occurs. 

Farther on we get down into a well timbered 
valley with luxuriant undergrowth. We can snatch 
delicious blue charkom berries from the tall bushes 
in passing, or break off a bunch of scarlet hooshum 
berries, a fruit with a peculiar, insipid, slightly 
acid taste, but refreshing, and said to be very 
healthy. 

There are a few pioneer ranchers up here ; they 
generally have a considerable amount of clearing 
to do, but the ground is very rich when it is cleared. 

The trail is steep in places, especially where there 
are side gullies to cross, and we often have to get 
off and lead the horses. The packhorses some- 
times get their packs jammed in between branches, 
and in their efforts to free themselves they very 
often disarrange their packs to such an extent that 



56 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

they have to be undone and tied up afresh, entailing 
considerable loss of time. 

Then we get out into more open country. One 
afternoon we camp in a beautiful green meadow 
near the North Fork, which has dwindled to a small 
creek. It is an ideal spot, but for one thing— the 
mosquitoes are something fierce, and we cannot 
remove the veil of mosquito netting from our hats 
for a moment. At night we have to place our 
hats over our heads so that the mosquito veil 
protects us as much as possible, but the little brutes 
get inside, and our faces suffer. We are not using 
the tents as the weather is fine. 

***** 

Then we leave the North Fork and climb up on 
to the divide. We soon get past the timber line, 
but there is grass right up to the top ; the altitude 
is only some seven thousand feet. There are some 
rugged peaks, surrounded by rocky bluffs and steep 
precipices, an ideal country for Rocky Mountain 
sheep and goats, and sure enough the eagle eye 
of Schwartz already discerns something in the 
distance. The field-glasses reveal the fact that it 
is a large flock of magnificent sheep, for the 
mountain sheep is a very different creature from 
the familiar domesticated animal. There must be 
over a hundred in the flock, but there is no chance 
to get near them ; they are much too wide awake, 
and in any case we have not come to hunt, so we 
leave them unmolested and continue our way. 

This is a great hunting country ; parties come 
here from all over North America, and from 
England too, for the sake of these sheep and goats. 
Schwartz is one of the most expert of the hunting 




IN A GULLY, 



V~lfc 



- *t 



\. 



CROSSING A GLACIER. 



X 




THE DESCENT ON THE OTHER SIDE. 



To face p- 56. 



•* 



1 

; 






THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 57 

guides, and what he doesn't know about the game 
in the country is hardly worth knowing. 

There is no trail here ; the country is all open, 
and Schwartz knows his way among the moun- 
tains. We can make good time here. But one of 
the packhorses puts his foot into a gopher hole 
and comes down. He has cut a small vein, and 
the blood spurts out from above the fetlock, but 
fortunately no bone is broken. His leg is bandaged 
and we proceed. He limps for several days, and 
has to be lightly loaded, but is soon well again. 
These gopher holes are very dangerous, and it is 
a wonder that he didn't break his leg. 

In this open country the horses are liable to 
scatter, and some one has to be riding round to 
head them off continually. Another brings up the 
rear, urging on the laggards, for some of the horses 
are lazy and will not go any faster than they have 
to. The process necessitates the exercise of con- 
siderable lung power, and it is absolutely essential 
to use the most foul and blasphemous language — 
at least, so I was told. Half apologizing for the 
choice expressions used, I was told that the horses 
would not take the least notice unless the language 
used was of that particular quality ; it was not 
the tone of voice that mattered, but the actual 
words used ! 

The air is simply glorious up on these mountains ; 
while it is oppressively hot down below, it is 
delightfully cool up here, and there is generally 
a little breeze, sometimes too much. We get 
magnificent views of valleys winding away for 
miles and miles, a meandering silver streak in- 
dicating the course of a river away below us. 



58 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

On the higher peaks there is a good bit of snow. 
Among the distant mountains we see many glaciers. 

Then we descend once more into a valley, and 
follow it up for five miles. In a thick coppice 
Schwartz shoots a young deer, which he speedily 
cleans out, and straps across the pack of one of 
the horses. 

Passing over another divide we follow the course 
of a small rivulet until it develops into a respectable 
little creek, rushing joyously and noisily down 
through a deep valley carpeted with soft grass 
and dotted with spruce and fir. Presently a 
beautiful lake opens out before our view, and 
another beyond in the distance. We camp near 
the lake. There is good horse feed here ; that is 
the principal consideration in choosing a camping 
ground. There are good fish in the lake too, that 
is another consideration. It is an idyllic spot— 
if it wasn't for the d d mosquitoes ! 

Following down the creek, we come into the 
large valley of Tyaughton Creek (pronounced 
Tyaxen), and follow it up to its head, crossing 
and recrossing the creek repeatedly, for the valley 
bottom is rough and thickly timbered in places. 
Then we pass up beyond the timber, in a grassy, 
rock-strewn valley, to the head of the creek. The 
high ground is teeming with groundhogs, or 
whistlers ; one would imagine that men wen 
whistling all around. Tommy shoots one with his 
twenty-two rifle, and carries it along in triumph. 
In the pass there is lots of snow ; it is quite 
refreshing in the hot sun. 

On the divide we pause ; a short valley, three 
or four miles long, lies before us, leading into the 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 59 

great valley of Big Creek, which stretches away to 
the north-west as far as the eye can reach, the river 
being discernible, a tiny silver thread, following 
its sinuous course, away into the distance. 

$ ifc $ $ 9 

We have another divide to cross before camp- 
ing to-night, a glacier this time, so we press on 
down into the valley of Big Creek, in this part of 
which there is not much timber, the ground being 
mossy, tending to muskeg. After following up this 
valley a couple of miles, we turn up a branch 
valley on the other side. In the distance we see 
the glacier ahead of us : it looks very inviting 
in the July heat. 

We are on the glacier now ; the surface is formed 
by packed snow, and we don't see the ice at all, 
so there are none of those clefts which usually 
make the crossing of a glacier such a difficult and 
risky undertaking. Here it is all plain sailing, and 
we rise to the top of the pass without difficulty. 
The aneroid shows the elevation to be 8,600 feet. 

Looking down in front the scene is one to pause 

over. Stretching away ahead of us is a long valley, 

green, brilliant in the sunshine, strewn with light 

grey boulders. Patches of snow for the first couple 

of miles ; a few hardy bushes ; and away down 

in the distance, the timber. On either side rugged 

! peaks rising sheer a thousand feet and more above 

i the valley, projecting bluffs alternating with pre- 

j cipitous watercourses and huge rock-slides. Snow 

wherever the slope is not too steep for it to lie. 

i In the distance ahead of us a sea of peaks ; far 

away to the south-west a giant peak towers high 

above the rest, its summit enveloped in a cloud. 



60 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

It must be at least fifteen thousand feet high. 
Surely it is Mount Tatlow. 

Then we descend some six miles, until we are 
well among the timber, and camp at the edge of 
a little meadow, alongside a babbling brook. Here 
we intend to remain for a few days, so we pitch 
the tents, one for Falconer and me, the other for 
Schwartz and Tommy. The mowitch (i.e. deer) 
skin is hung up to dry out, and Tommy stretches 
the skin of his groundhog on a piece of split cedar, 
and the carcass he sets on a pointed stack before 
the fire to roast, but he is so much chaffed about 
it that, after treasuring it for days, he finally throws 
it away uneaten. I should not imagine that it 
would be a very tasty dish, although I have heard 
of prospectors eating them. The flesh is very strong. 
* * * * * 

This is a beautiful country we are in ; the vege- 
tation is luxuriant in the valleys. It is sometimes 
said that there are no wild -flowers in British 
Columbia, but whoever says so has certainly not 
seen this country ; he may have seen the vicinity 
of Vancouver, and not observed it very closely, but 
he can certainly never have been in the Lillooet 
district, or he would have a very different tale to tell. 

For here, up among the mountains, every meadow 
is thick with flowers of all descriptions, large ox- 
eye daisies of all shades from pure white to deep 
purple, single and double, of a dozen different 
kinds ; yellow flowers of the ranunculus and 
buttercup families in millions — large, small, long- 
stemmed, short-stemmed, single and in clusters ; 
here and there a gorgeous tiger-lily, small in com- 
parison to our cultivated variety, but of exquisite 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 61 

colouring. Then the nightshade, so deadly yet so 
beautiful. And in each zone of altitude you find 
different Ilowers ; in the forest glades are great 
patches of deep blue, identical to look at with 
patches of wild hyacinths in English woods, but on 
closer examination they are found not to be hya- 
cinths, but lupins. These grow in profusion both 
in the woods and in the open meadows, of all shades 
of blue, from delicate sky blue to the deep tint of 
the hyacinth, some a rich violet colour, a few pure 
white, many speckled blue and white ; occasionally 
one is seen of a delicate pink shade. 

Then there are ilowers in the damp places, in 
the dry places, among the rocks, on the exposed 
hillsides, deep hidden in the long grass ; every- 
where one comes across new varieties. Delicate, 
semi-transparent white anemones, exquisite little 
white and pink wax -like flowers on the ground, 
large clusters of fragrant cream-coloured blossoms 
on long stalks. And in the very passes themselves, 
almost on the edge of the snow, one of the most 
beautiful of Ilowers scattered by Nature with lavish 
hand, that fascinating little waxy blossom so much 
sought alter in the Alps, the edelweiss, white, 
pale blue, pale pink, growing so thick that one is 
forced to tread the delicate little blossoms underfoot. 
In the hay meadows pea -vines, blue and purple, 
so eagerly sought by the horses. And on the grassy 
slopes a profusion of bright yellow narcissus -like 
flowers, and other larger, equally pretty, lilac- 
coloured ones. These two are not merely orna- 
mental, they are useful, for one is the scammitch 
or wild potato, and the other the wild onion. Both 
these are very small, and it takes a lot to make a 



62 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

mouthful, but Tommy diligently collects them and 
we have many a succulent dish. 

The potatoes are barely, as large as small cherries, 
but they are said to be the original from which the 
familiar tuber has been developed. The onions 
are still smaller. Both have to be drawn up most 
carefully, as the stems are very brittle ; you want 
something to dig with— a prospecting pick comes in 
handy. 

Falconer does the cooking ; and he teaches me 
how to make a bannock, that substitute for bread 
indispensable to every prospector. The dough is 
mixed in the mouth of the flour sack itself ; then, 
when thoroughly kneaded, it is put in a well -greased 
frying-pan, which is stood up by means of a stick, 
facing the fire, until one side is browned. Then 
comes the part where the true artist displays his 
skill and the novice his awkwardness ; the bannock 
has to be turned over by tossing it like a pancake, 
and it takes a lot of practice to give just the right 
kind of jerk to the frying-pan. It is not by any 
means so easy as it looks, and if one is not very 
careful the half-baked bannock is liable to land 
on the ground ! 

The resulting bread, when well made, is delicious, 
but baking-powder bread is heavy at the best and 
it is always a relief to get back to yeast bread 
again after a trip in the bush. The baking-powder 
itself, too, is injurious in the long run, and a man 
cannot live on it for very long without getting his 
internal arrangements knocked up. 

* * * * * 

From this camp we make several excursions to 
examine the country, and then proceed farther 






w 






ill i. \w.\s BOAT 




BY THE LAKE SHORE 



To face p. 62. 



! 



! 






THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 63 

down. On a mountain ahead we have amused our- 
selves in the evenings tracing fantastic shapes in 
the snow patches, one resembling a camel, another a 
horse's head, another a priest with a girl kneeling 
before him, another a rooster, and so on, so we 
christen it Picture Mountain, and our next camp 
is in the valley at its foot. We are now in Schwartz's 
special hunting ground ; he tells us that there have 
not been more than a dozen white people in this 
part of the country before us, and of these, two 
have been ladies ! Falconer has been here several 
times, but he does not know the country like 
Schwartz does. It is a great hunting district for 
the Chilcotin Indians who live farther to the north, 
but come here in the summer to hunt and collect 
roots. 

Then we proceed down to Whitewater Lakes, 
two long, narrow sheets of water connected by a 
channel half a mile Jong and only some two hundred 
yards wide. Neither lake is more than two or 
three miles wide at any point ; each is about twenty 
miles long. At the far end of the upper one we 
see a glacier, the water from which is thick and 
milky, hence the name Whitewater. 1 If the water 
had only been clear and blue it would have been 
an ideal place for a summer resort, but the cloudy 
water greatly detracts from its charm. 

These lakes have never yet been shown on a 
map, this being one of the many blank areas on 
the map of British Columbia, with only a river 
vaguely sketched in. It will be my privilege on 
returning to the outside world to turn in my notes 

1 A common name in British Columbia. This has of course 
no connection with the Whitewater referred to in Chapter I. 



64 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

to be placed on record. It is only great people 
like Lloyd George and Mrs. Pankhurst who can 
make history, but some <of us lesser fry can at 
times help to make geography ! 

A trail used by the Indians crosses the narrow 
channel between the two lakes, and there is a dug- 
out moored to the bank. But we are independent 
of it, having our canvas boat. 

This is accordingly carefully unpacked, and after 
reading the instructions through several times we 
start to put it together. After a number of unsuc- 
cessful attempts it is finally fixed up correctly and 
launched, and we proceed to ferry our dunnage 
across to the far side. Falconer and I are the first 
white men to navigate the waters of Whitewater 
Lake. 

The horses have to be swum across, and that is 
no easy job. They have to be chased into the water 
with sticks and stones and a lot of shouting, and 
even after they are in they are disinclined to strike 
out into deep water, but wade along parallel to the 
shore and scramble up the bank two hundred yards 
away. Then we have to head them off, and get 
them in again. It is a good two hours before 
we finally manage to get them to the other 
side. 

But once there they are safe, as there is a piece 
of good grazing in the immediate neighbourhood 
surrounded by dense timber, so that they cannot 
easily stray. That is why we came over to this 
side. Our camping ground is most picturesque ; 
a little open space on the shore of a small bay at 
the head of the lower lake. The place is densely 
timbered with cottonwood, and there is a thick 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 65 

undergrowth. The beautiful silver-grey bark of the 
cottonwood is easily collected, and makes a very 
hot fire, but the smoke is unendurable ; it has such 
a strong, pungent smell that when the wind blows 
it over to your side there is nothing for it but to 
shift to the other side, and it is wonderful how 
often the wind changes on such an occasion. 

On the side we have left there are some beautiful 
grass meadows extending for miles. There is a 
luxuriant crop of hay, and it would make a splendid 
stock-raising land in the summer, but it would be 
unsuited for agriculture as the lake is over four 
thousand feet above the sea. 

***** 

Next day Falconer and I take the canvas boat 
through the narrow passage to the upper lake. It 
is hard rowing up against the stream, and the oars 
are so fragile that we dare not put too much force 
on to them, so that we have to manoeuvre so as to 
get into the eddies as much as possible until we 
reach the open lake. 

Once there it is all right, but all of a sudden a 
wind springs up, lashing the surface of the water 
into a commotion in a few minutes ; it is marvellous 
how quickly a sea gets up in a long, narrow lake 
like this. We have to keep close in to the shelter 
of the shore, or our frail craft will be swamped. 
A couple of miles up a long sand-bar stretches 
nearly all the way across the lake, and we land 
and take a walk along it. It is simply teeming 
with footprints of all kinds — deer in profusion, 
large prints of cariboo and moose, numerous bear, 
coyotes, jack -rabbits, wild-fowl of many kinds ; 
the country must be thick with game, but we see 

5 



66 THE CALL OF, THE WEST 

none except a flock of what appear to be geese 
in the distance. 

Three miles above us is a little islet surmounted 
by a few trees, which give it exactly the appearance 
of a man-of-war. 

But our principal excursions are on the lower 
lake. One day we take our blankets and three 
days' provisions and set out for the lower end of the 
lake. After a time rowing becomes monotonous, 
and as there is a slight breeze we improvise a 
sail out of two pieces of gunny sack, cutting a 
stick for a mast. One of us holds up the mast 
while the other steers with an oar. It is a some- 
what primitive arrangement, but better than rowing. 

Now and then we stop and examine the shore, 
taking topographical notes also, which will help 
to " make geography." At the end of the lake 
ahead of us is a very prominent mountain, the end 
of a ridge extending away to the west ; the land on 
the east side is much lower. We sail all round the 
base of this great mountain, and in the evening 
we camp at the very end of the lake. The stream 
issuing from the lake is far too rough for us to 
venture with our flimsy boat, but in the morning 
we take a walk down for a few miles. There is 
a trail here, for a regular Indian travelling route, 
quite a highway of communication, crosses the river 
at the end of the lake, leading from Hanceville on 
the Chilcotin to Lake Chilko. Presently we come 
to a camping ground, fishbones and tins littered 
all round. In the evening we strike camp and 
row 7 up to a point at the base of the great mountain. 
There is no good camping ground near the shore, 
and we have to go up some little way on to the 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 67 

flat ground above. A low pass extends away 
to the west. The trail follows this, having skirted 
round the base of the mountain, but it is very 
indistinct here, having become overgrown with the 
rapid growth of long grass. We fix upon a spot 
right at the foot of the mountain, and lay out our 
blankets. We have brought no tent with us, so 
that camping is a very simple matter, but as it 
threatens rain we rig up a kind of bivouac with 
the gunny sack which has served us for a sail. 
It is fortunate that we took this precaution, as it 
rains heavily during the night. 

In the morning we make the ascent of the moun- 
tain, following up a draw. 1 It is very steep and 
the grass is exceedingly slippery. We pass through 
some thick belts of willow and other bushes, and 
in places there is quite a growth of jack-pine 
and spruce. Frequently we have to climb up on 
rock-slides ; then it is a matter of clambering, 
hanging on by our hands ; the rock fragments slide 
away under our feet, and progress is slow. After 
two hours of climbing we come to a knoll, where 
we pause and look round. There is the lake stretch- 
ing away to the north, two thousand feet below 
us according to the aneroid. And we are barely 
half-way up yet. 

A little creek descends in a draw close by and 
we quench our thirst in the delicious water straight 
from the snow above. Then we resume the climb, 
and another two hours' hard climbing brings us 
to the summit. On the face towards the lake the 
mountain is very rugged and there is a sheer drop 
down from the summit for several hundred feet, 
1 A small ravine on a steep hillside. 



68 THE CALL OE THE WEST 

but at the back it is easy of access, the summit 
being the rounded extremity of a ridge extending 
away back to higher peaks beyond. In all the 
more sheltered places there is deep snow, but the 
actual summit is clear and grass -grown. 

The height, according to the aneroid, is 8,250 
feet, actually less than that of the glacier which 
we crossed in the pass on the way here. But the 
mountain occupies such a prominent position, 
being seen from all along the lake, that Falconer 
had set his heart upon my name being attached 
to it as a record of its first ascent, at any rates by 
white men. Such self-advertisement, however, does 
not appeal to me, and we make a compromise, 
finally deciding to give it the name of my home 
city, Cardiff, which fact is put on record by inscrib- 
ing the name on a slab of wood which is buried 
in a cairn erected on the highest point. Loose stones 
of sufficient i'.ze are not very plentiful up there, 
and it takes us an hour to build even a small cairn. 

The descent from the summit of Mount Cardiff 
is easy, although somewhat fatiguing, especially to 
the knees, and it is still early afternoon when we 
reach our bivouac. Wishing to have a pictorial 
record of our appearance sleeping under our impro- 
vised shelter with our hats over our heads to 
support the mosquito veils, we fix up dummies in 
the blankets to look as nearly like our own figures 
as possible, and the photo is taken. Then we pack 
up, return to the boat, and start off for an hour's 
row before stopping for the night. 

But the night promises to be so fine that we 
decide only to stop for supper and then make a 
moonlight trip up the lake. The moon is full and 





WHITE WATER LAKE. 




AN IMPROVISED SAIL. 





MOUNT CARDIFF. 



To face p. 68. 






: 



: 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRYl 69 

it is almost as light as day. The mountains look 

mysterious and almost unreal, the water is smooth 

and deep and silent ; altogether the scene is one 

of enchantment, and the cool night air is delicious 

after the heat of the day. This moonlight row 

i is one of the most enjoyable experiences on the 

i whole trip. There is seldom much breeze, and we 

| cannot use the sail very much, but take it in turns 

to row, an hour at a time, and in the wee small 

hours of morning we arrive in camp, much to the 

surprise of Schwartz and Tommy, who are aroused 

from their peaceful slumbers by the sound of our 

paddles, and soon have a fire on and a pot of tea 

ready for us. 

***** 

Now comes the return trip ; we have decided 
not to go back to Lillooet by the same way that 
we came, but to make for Bridge River via Gun 
Creek, so we head south, following up one of the 
forks of Schwartz's Valley, and over a glacier into 
the Gun Creek watershed, and on along the high 
ground past Sheba's Breasts, twin peaks prominent 
for miles. But in order to avoid a long detour we 
descend into the valley. It is a beautiful, park- 
like valley, but Schwartz warns us there is swampy 
ground ahead and we must be careful ., And sure 
enough, in crossing a bad piece of muskeg, 
two of the packhorses sink in up to their 
shoulders. Their packs are carefully removed, 
and by dint of pulling on their halter ropes 
they are safely extricated, but it is a nasty 
occurrence, and they might not have been so easily 
got out of the mire. 

Meanwhile, the other horses have to be tethered, 



70 



THE CALL OF THE WEST 



lest they should stray over the bad ground and 
get mired too. Then all the horses have to be 
carefully led, feeling the way until firm ground 
is reached again. 

In passing through a thicket we disturb a covey 
of fool -hens, a variety of grouse. They fly up, 
eleven of them, and settle in the low branches a 
few yards away. Schwartz gets out his twenty -two 
rifle and pots each one of them in turn ; not one 
thinks of flying away. It is hardly sport, but that 
is the way a prospector replenishes his larder, and 
the birds certainly well deserve their name ! 

Once, on descending into a beautiful green valley, 
we see an Indian camp ; there must be fifty horses 
there. They are Ghilcotins, or Chillicotins as they 
are called here, hunting and collecting scammitch 
and berries. Schwartz will have nothing to do 
with them, and Tommy is in mortal terror of them ; 
they are " bad men." There is no love lost between 
the Lillooets and the Chilcotins. 

As we pass down Gun Creek towards Bridge 
River we meet a surveyor on his way up the valley ; 
he is trying to find a pass through which to locate 
a railway from the coast up to some point on 
the Fraser, but what company he represents he 
does not know, or at any rate he will not say, 
such is the secrecy maintained by the many rival 
railway companies in the field. 

Then we descend into the valley of the Bridge 
River. For some miles before we reach it the 
uppermost layer of soil consists of several feet of 
volcanic ash. But that doesn't seem to interfere 
with the fertility in any way ; the growth is very 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 71 

luxuriant. On entering the valley proper we pass 
through a forest of magnificent yellow fir and yellow 
pine, very handsome trees, three to four feet in 
diameter, with bright orange bark, that of the firs 
split into long, lenticular segments, and that of the 
pines into the peculiar short pieces characteristic 
of pines. We are again in the region of the 
succulent charkom berries, and they grow here in 
profusion. 

There are a number of mines on Cadwallader 
Creek, a fork of Bridge River, and there is a very 
good trail from Lillooet. It is being converted into 
a wagon road, and about thirty miles have been 
completed already. 

These Bridge Creek mines are interesting but 
very uncertain. The gold comes in pockets. You 
can get beautiful specimens ; the manager of one 
mine presented me with a very handsome specimen 
of gold on quartz ; but pockets are naturally 
unreliable, and the mines have not been a brilliant 
success so far. One of the most notorious wild-cat 
fiascos in the history of British Columbia was here, 
and it gave such a bad name to the country that 
the province still suffers from it, and the Bridge 
River in particular is even now looked upon with 
suspicion. 

Some placer mining has been done by " hydrau- 
licking " ; two men are constructing a ditch and 
flume to work a property now. They have got some- 
thing like a camp : a large double marquee to 
live in — bedroom at one end, living room at the 
other, all mosquito proof ; comfortable deck-chairs 
and bookshelves ; a kitchen adjoining, and, the 
greatest luxury of all, a huge canvas bath, six feet 



72 THE CALL* OF THE WEST 

square, let into the ground in a special tent, in which 
there is a gasolene stove. That is something like 
the way to live in camp ! And these men are no 
mere sybarites ; they are real hard workers, but 
they like comfort in the evenings and on Sundays. 

They pressed us to stay the night, but we had 
to move on so as to get farther down the valley. 
We wished afterwards we had accepted their 
hospitality, for we had left our tents down on Bridge 
River, and, although it was a beautiful evening when 
we camped in the long grass in a pleasant meadow, 
we woke up in the morning to find a torrent of 
rain coming down and pools of water in our 
blankets. The rain stopped later, but it was a 
wet and forlorn company that sat down to breakfast 
at seven o'clock ! 

The brush is thick over the trail ; the horses 
can pass easily, but we have to force our way 
through the elder and hooshum berry bushes, whose 
branches block the way at the height of a man on 
horseback. Each branch that is pushed aside 
scatters a shower over one, most of which generally 
seems to find its way down the back of one's neck ; 
it is certainly no treat to ride first on such an occa- 
sion ! However, the day is fine and the cheerful 
sunshine revives our drooping spirits as we descend 
the steep trail to the Bridge River and follow along 
the valley. 

But next morning it rains again, and continues 
all day. Our slickers protect us down to the knees, 
but the water runs off the lower edge of the slicker 
below our knees, and our overalls are soon soaked 
and our boots filled with water. 

There are a number of settlers along the valley, 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRY] 73 

and we are thankful when, late in the afternoon, 

we reach the " ranch " of an Irish-Canadian, who 

makes us welcome for the night. We change our 

soaked garments, and dry out our blankets before 

the fire, and what a comfort it is to have dry things 

on at last ! 

***** 

Next day we push on, and presently, meet the 
parties working on the wagon road construction, 
after which travelling is very easy, for the road 
is new and well made. 

After seventeen miles we leave the valley and 
climb up on to Mission Pass, for the river enters 
into a canon, and the road leaves it and cuts 
across to Seton Lake. Near the top of the pass 
we camp. There is not much water to be had, 
but we manage to find a little spring. 

Then we set out for the last day's ride. And 
coming over the pass, what a sight meets our ej^es ! 
Away to the south-west stretches Anderson Lake, 
the deep blue of its waters reflecting the rocky 
heights which hem it in, and, separated from 
Anderson Lake by a narrow strip of land, almost 
below our feet, but two thousand feet down, lies 
Seton Lake, its surface sparkling in the morning 
sun as it stretches away to the eastward. And 
on the edge of the lake, just below us, on a beautiful 
green flat, is a little white toy church surrounded 
by a dozen equally white dolls' houses. At least, 
they look like the tiniest of dolls' houses at that 
distance below us, and they all look so trim and 
neat, just as if they were straight out of a toyshop. 

A precipitous, zigzag bit of road soon brings us 
down to the settlement, and the dolls' houses, 



74 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

though now grown to full size, still have the neat, 
spick-and-span appearance of toys, each house 
having its little bit of well-kept garden. This is 
the Catholic Mission Settlement, from which the pass 
derives its name. 

Then we jog on along the lake shore, and what 
a charming ride it is ! Now the road is cut in the 
solid rock, again we emerge and skirt around a 
bay, the road supported on trestles in the lake 
itself, for the cliff rises sheer up ; then we come 
to a more open bit, but not for long — it is nearly 
all rock. Sometimes we rise to a height of a 
hundred feet above the water, then on a sharp 
turn we look sheer down over the edge into the 
deep water below. But the road is well constructed 
throughout. 

After skirting the lake for fifteen miles we reach 
its outlet into Cayoose Creek, and pass by the 
Government Trout Hatchery, with its immaculately 
kept lawns and beautiful flower gardens ; then on 
past the fork of Cayoose Creek, where the clear 
green water from the lakes meets the turbid white 
water from the glaciers away to the south-west, 
and the two run alongside each other for a mile 
without mixing. And early in the afternoon, after 
a delightful trip of three weeks, we ride gaily into 
Lillooet. 

It is August now, and the famous Lillooet fruit 
is at its prime. Mr. Keiry hospitably invites us 
down to his orchard to roam at will and help our- 
selves, a privilege which we fully appreciate, for 
the golden apples and luscious plums are a glorious 
treat after three weeks of camp fare. 






I 

■ 4 


w^- --■ ^m 


i r iliHkt^i 






.^*za*&i** ■ 



OUR BIVOUAC. 




HORSES MIKI D IN A Ml SKEG 




GUN CREEK liRIDGE. 



To face p. 74. 



THE LILLOOET COUNTRY 75 

But the enjoyment of this elysian feast is marred 
by the news which is contained in my mail. For 
on the very day that we set out so light-heartedly 
from Lillooet three weeks ago, my home away in 
the Slocan disappeared in smoke ! Houses, mines, 
and everything have been wiped out by one of 
those terrible forest fires which are the bane of 
the country. So off I have to go to Vancouver 
without knowing what lies before me, and it is 
not until long afterwards that I learn that nearly 
all my effects have been saved by friends. 

At one of the tables in the hotel there is a party 
of English people. The chief personage is a middle- 
aged lady, the typical graade dame of English 
social life, and strangely out of place here in the 
wild and woolly West. But she has come here for 
a definite purpose ; her son has married a Western 
girl, and she has come out to inspect and pass 
judgment. There is no need to ask what the 
judgment has been ; one has only to look at the 
happy faces of the group round the table. And 
how could it have been otherwise? Just look at 
the young bride handling her cayoose as they start 
out on their afternoon ride — what a picture of happy, 
healthy womanhood ! And it is good to see her 
with the English sister ; they are bosom friends 
and have many things to discuss together, things 
beyond the ken of any mere man. Both are pretty, 
but how different ! And how different their lives 
are ! It is good for Old Country people to come 
out here sometimes and see something of the life 
of the West. 

The sister is enjoying it immensely ; she will 
certainly want to come back for another visit, and 



76 THE CALD OF THE WEST 

then perhaps she will stay on this side, for there 
are always many young men looking out for wives, 
and an attractive girl cannot remain single very 
long over here. 

But of all the group the happiest is the young 
brother, a lad of sixteen. One can imagine his 
feelings. Fancy leaving a solid, respectable English 
school for the summer holidays and coming to 
Lillooet ! And roaming at will on a cayoose among 
the glorious mountains and lakes. Fancy being 
suddenly transplanted into these surroundings with 
all the glamour and romance of boyhood upon one ! 
To him, life in the wild West is just one continuous 
summer holiday, amidst the ideal surroundings for 
which his heart has been yearning ever since he 
first read of cowboys and Red Indians. No w T onder 
he wants to stay out here with his big brother ; 
it would be a marvel if he didn't ! How inex- 
pressibly dull life in England will seem after this ! 
He will certainly come back later if he cannot 
stay now. And he is the kind that is wanted in 
this country. 

But I must leave this happy group to their rides 
and their rambles and face the dusty road once 
more. And as luck will have it I come in sight 
of Lytton just in time to see the afternoon train 
steaming out, and have to wait there until 2 a.m., 
for the night train is late. And when I once get 
on board there is not a berth in a sleeper to be 
had, and it is only after going from one end of 
the train to the other three times that I finally 
find a place to sit down in until Vancouver is 
reached in the morning. 



CHAPTER III 
THE ISLAND 

In Eastern Canada only one island is known ; if 
any one mentions " the Island " he is understood to 
refer to the island province, Prince Edward Island. 

So it is in the West ; there are countless thousands 
of islands along the coast of British Columbia, but 
if any one speaks of " the Island," it is Vancouver 
Island that is referred to. 

People in the Old Country seem to have very 
peculiar ideas about Vancouver Island ; many 
imagine it to be something comparable to the Isle 
of Wight, if so large, and it is a shock to them to 
hear that it is nearly three hundred miles long, and 
from fifty to eighty wide. The misconception is 
very likely due to the fact that in all but the most 
recent atlases Canada is shown on such a small 
scale that the size of such an island is not realized. 

Another prevalent error is due to the confusion 
between the city of Vancouver and the Island. 
People tell you they have relatives in Vancouver, 
and, after vainly trying to locate them, and find in 
what part of the city they live, you discover that 
they are really in some remote place on the Island ! 
It is rather unfortunate that the Terminal City, on 
the mainland should have been given the same name 

77 



78 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

as the island, for the confusion is natural to those 
unfamiliar with the geography of these parts, but 
such is the case, and we must make the best 
of it. 

* :$s * * * 

At the south-eastern extremity of the Island is 
situated the beautiful Queen City, sleepy little 
Victoria, as it is patronizingly called by the busy 
citizens of Vancouver, who are jealous of the fact 
that Victoria is the capital of the province. But at 
the time the choice was made there was no question 
of Vancouver as an alternative. The only other 
serious candidate for the post was the Royal City, 
New Westminster, and it would surely have been a 
worse thorn in Vancouver's side if little Westminster, 
only twelve miles away, now a mere adjunct of the 
larger city, had been made the capital ! No, a wise 
choice was made when Victoria was fixed upon as 
the seat of government ; it far surpasses Vancouver 
as a residential place, and in climate. 

It is indeed a delightful place to live in ; the 
rainfall is much less than in Vancouver ; in fact, 
it is a little too dry in summer ; the grass gets 
parched up, and the gardens have to be continu- 
ally watered. 

The winters are mild ; it is like the South Coast 
of England. In summer there is always a slight 
breeze in the evenings, which are invariably cool. 
That is in one way a drawback, as one cannot sit 
out of doors late in the evening with comfort ; but 
the fact that the nights are always cool, no mailer 
how hot it has been during the day, will be appre- 
ciated by those who have lived in the East (that is to 
say Eastern Canada or United States ; Eastern Asia 



THE ISLAND 79 

is referred to either as the Orient or as the Far 

East, in spite of the fact that you have to go west 

to get there). 

***** 

Victoria may well be proud of her Government 
buildings ; they are probably one of the most elegant 
and well-proportioned groups of buildings in the 
world. The view as one comes round the point, 
past the unsightly soap works into the little harbour, 
never fails to excite the admiration of all who see 
it for the first time. 

The Government buildings are on the right, and 
straight ahead is the beautiful Empress Hotel, built 
of pink stone, of elegant design, with bright beds 
of flowers in front, and immaculate green lawns 
sloping down to the causeway which runs across 
the head of the harbour. 

Not many years ago this was a marsh ; it was 
possible to travel in a canoe through the sloughs 
for quite a long way from the head of tho harbour. 
Now, thanks to the enterprise of " sleepy little 
Victoria" and the C.P.R., to which the Empress 
Hotel belongs, the head of the harbour presents 
as pleasing a prospect as one could wish to 
see. 

And the interior of the hotel is in keeping with 
the exterior. The furniture is not only beautiful, 
but arranged for comfort. The lounge and the palm- 
house are simply magnificent ; every afternoon and 
evening they are thronged with visitors who come 
to discuss business or to listen to the music, 

The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway is going to 
build a hotel on a site close by, to, vie with the 
" Empress." It will have a hard job to surpass it ! 



80 THE CALL OE THE WEST 

But there is lots of room for it, for the " Empress " 
is always full, although there are a number of other 
hotels in the city. 

* * * * * 

One peculiarity about Victoria is that, whichever 
way you go, you come to the sea in a short distance. 
The harbour faces west, turning round in a 
southerly direction at the entrance ; on the south, 
after passing through beautiful Beacon Hill Park, 
you come to the coast again in a mile. There we 
can descend to the beach, or sit on the top of the 
cliffs and contemplate the Strait of Juan de Fuca 
and the great, mysterious Olympic Mountains in 
the State of Washington beyond. Wonderful effects 
of mirage are seen here on a hot summer's day ; a 
lighthouse appears to be four hundred feet high ; 
its image is repeated four or five times above it, 
alternately inverted and erect. 

Then on the east, after traversing some of the 
finest residential districts, passing close to Govern- 
ment House, the residence of the Lieutenant- 
Governor, we come in less than three miles to Oak 
Bay, where are situate the racecourse and the golf- 
links. It is a very pleasant suburb, looking out 
over the Strait of Georgia and San Juan Island. 
On a clear day the snow-capped dome of Mount 
Baker is seen rising high above everything, seventy - 
five miles to the east. 

To the north we come in a few miles to Cordova 
Bay, with its expanse of sand, one of the favourite 
summer camping -places in the immediate vicinity 
of the city. 

Victoria Harbour itself is very small, only suitable 
for the coasting steamers : the ocean liners, of which 




GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, VICTORIA. 




A FISHING VILLAGE. 



THE ISLAND «1 

there are many, crossing to the Orient, Australia, 
etc., have to use the Outer Wharf, outside the 
harbour. There is not room to accommodate many, 
vessels there, and in order to give greater 
harbour facilities, an extensive scheme of break- 
waters has been proposed. But the simplest plan 
would be to make use of the excellent harbour of 
Esquimalt (pronounced Eskivymault, with the accent 
on the "y 1 '). This is two miles west of Victoria, 
and is a splendid harbour. It was the British 
naval base in the Pacific, but since Canada has 
started to run a fleet of her own it is no longer 
used as such, and might well become the harbour 
of greater Victoria. 

***** 

The city itself is not very exciting. Some fine 
business blocks have been put up within recent 
years, but in comparison with Vancouver or Seattle 
it is very insignificant. 

But the residential districts are grand. Beautiful 
asphalted roads with cemented sidewalks, elegant 
villas surrounded by well-kept gardens, a profusion 
of brilliant flowers, and shady trees, all give the 
impression of homelike comfort, combined with that 
good taste which is so often lacking in the best 
suburbs of the larger cities. 

Oak-trees grow here, but as they have only been 
introduced since the Island has been colonized, none 
have attained to any great size yet. On the mainland 
they have never been persuaded to grow. One of 
the most beautiful trees is the arbutus, with its 
brilliant red trunk and long, shining, dark green 
leaves. 

The country is very rocky. Now and then we come 

6 



82 THE CALL OE THE WEST 

to a tump of rugged, dark grey rock ; numerous 
little hills are dotted about, and the suburban roads 
wind around them or ascend at an easy, grade. 
There is none of the fearful monotony of the rect- 
angular block system, cutting through everything 
in dead straight lines, which spoils American cities 
from an aesthetic point of view, although greatly 
facilitating the finding of one's way. 

In Victoria West there are some very fine resi- 
dences, reminding one strongly of the Old Country, 
except that on closer inspection all the houses are 
found to be built of wood. Until a few years ago 
there was an Indian Reservation between Victoria 
West and the Harbour, across which one had to 
pass in going: from the city to; its western suburb. 
It was an intolerable state of affairs to see such a 
large area in such a location lying waste, occupied 
only hj a few Indians, and after much negotiation 
it was bought by the city, a large sum of money 
being paid in addition to the granting of a new 
reservation some miles away. The Siwashes had 
never seen so much money before, and didn't know 
what to do with it. Shortly afterwards some of 
them were seen driving about the city in their own 
autos ! And as for clothes and finery, the dealers 
in personal adornment of all descriptions simply 
had the time of their lives ! 

Then along towards the Gorge there are beauti- 
ful houses with delightful gardens sloping down 
to the water. Their occupants can go in to business 
in gasolene launches, a most enjoyable trip of a 
couple of miles. 

At the Gorge itself is a nice shady park, a 
favourite evening resort where people come out to 



THE ISLAND S3 

i 
listen to the band, or to bathe or take a turn in a 
light boat or canoe. An elegant bridge crosses the 
little canon from which the place derives its name ; 
it is really a charming spot. It is a very popular 
bathing-place, and on a hot summer's afternoon 
or evening the water is crowded. But it is shallow 
near the bathing establishment, and the w T ater gets 
very warm. I always preferred the open sea of the 
Strait of Juan de Fuca on the south side of the 
town. 

There is no bathing establishment there ; one 
must undress on the shingle beach. The water out 
there is cold, sometimes too cold. It is the water of 
the Fraser River, whose mouth is sixty miles away, 
but which is carried down past the end of the island 
without getting warmed up very much. Sometimes 
on a broiling hot day in August, when it is scarcely 
possible to lie down on the shingle without getting 
burnt by the contact, the water is so icy that it is 
simply a case of dash in and out again. 

* * * * * 

I was once standing on the bridge at the Gorge;, 
contemplating the view, when an American lady 
sailed down upon me with the exclamation u Please 
to tell me whaiy they cahl this the Gawaarge ! " 
It seemed to me so obvious that I was rather at a 
loss to explain it to her without apparent rudeness, 
but fortunately she didn't trouble to wait for my 
answer, giving vent to ejaculations of admiration 
at the " waiyldness " of the scene. She was carry- 
ing a vanity bag covered all over with brilliantly, 
coloured labels, advertising in very large letters the 
fact that she had been " doing " the Grand Canon 
of the Colorado and other famous places in the 



84 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

West, and I was not a little surprised that, coming 
straight from such scenes, she should be so en- 
thusiastic over our little gorge. 

Then I was left in peace once more ; she had 
" done " the Gorge, and proceeded to " do " the rest 
of the sights of Victoria. 

Some of the visitors to Victoria are very amusing ; 
it is quite a sight to watch the arrival of the Seattle 
boat on a summer's day. An excursion to the Queen 
City is a very favourite trip from Seattle, either 
just for the day, returning by, the night boat, or 
for a longer period. 

As a place of business they hardly take Victoria 
seriously at all, but as a place of beauty the Seattle 
trippers, like all other visitors, are loud in its 
praise. 

The cheap tripper from Seattle is a curious 
apparition. Eternally chewing gum, his jaws are 
never still for a moment, but always moving in the 
most hideous contortions ; his clothes are cut so as 
to give him as nearly as possible a diamond -shaped 
profile ; a coat, narrow at the top, very full at the 
lower extremity, and of excessive length ; a ludi- 
crous exaggeration of the monstrosity known as 
" peg-top " trousers ; bright yellow shoes, brogued 
in the most violent patterns, with laces an inch wide 
tied in enormous bows ; at least six inches of sock 
visible, purple and yellow, or some such delicate 
combination of tints ; to crown all, an immense 
shock of hair, four inches long at the back, pro- 
jecting two inches from the back of the head down 
as far as the top of the neck, and there abruptly 
cut off, the neck being shaved and shining like a 
billiard ball ! and a round, flat hat perched at an 



THE ISLAND 85 

angle on the top of this, generally sloping down 
over the eyes in a way that is imagined by the 
wearer to give him a knowing look, but really has 
a most ludicrous effect. 

The female of the species I will not attempt to 
describe, not knowing the technical names for the 
various parts of her get-up. I only add that the 
gum -chewing habit is by no means confined to the 
male. 

Of course, they are not all quite so terrible, and 
it is understood that the description is only intended 
to apply to the vulgar " nut " who comes over in 
thousands, not to the better class Americans, nor 
to those of the lower class who do not attempt to 
be dandies. 

* * * * * 

There is a splendid service of boats " round the 
Sound " between Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle ; 
three services each way daily between the two 
Canadian ports, one of which in each direction is 
on the " triangular run," going round the three 
ports continuously in the same direction. There 
are also other steamers running between Seattle and 
each of the other cities. This is apart from the 
numerous boats which start out from one of these 
places and call at .another on the way farther 
afield. 

There used to be an American company running 
between Seattle and Victoria in opposition to the 
C.P.R. boats. Tariff wars ensued, and one summer 
when the American company reduced their fare 
from $2 to 50c, the C.P.R. retaliated by dropping 
theirs to two bits. Fancy a seven hours' trip on a 
magnificent steamer for 25 cents ! 



86 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

The trip between Vancouver and Victoria is most 
enjoyable. There is sometimes a slight swell in 
the Sound, which is described by those who have 
never been farther afield as a rough sea, but 
generally it is beautifully calm. 

The first half from Vancouver is in the open 
Sound, or, to be more correct, the Strait of 
Georgia, but about half-way across we get in among 
the islands which extend out on the eastern side 
of Vancouver Island from the vicinity of Nanaimo 
right away into Puget Sound. The passage through 
Active Pass is always interesting, first the lighthouse, 
then the Pass opening out to view as we round the 
point, the summer hotel on Mayne Island and 
the attractive -looking little settlement, the Indian 
villages on either side, the high, rocky bluffs 
of Galiano Island, the sharp; bend in the Pass, 
and once more we are in the open with Pender 
Island ahead. Only one thing mars the en- 
joyment of the passage, and that is the hideous 
great boards stuck up in prominent positions 
announcing the fact that one or another hotel in 
Victoria is the best and most moderate. Even here 
the glorious scenery can't be left alone, but must 
be sacrificed on the altar of the Almighty Dollar ! 
Once the rents were allowed to expire, and they 
were all pulled down early in the morning, but 
unfortunately the rents were soon paid up and the 
boards were allowed once more to disfigure the 
view. 

From Active Pass on we are among islands all 
the way until we approach the shore of Vancouver 
Island. As we pass Cormorant Bay we have on 
our left the large island of San Juan, belonging 




HOUSE ROCK, GALIAXO ISLAND. 




SUNSET, POKTIEK PASS. 



To face p. 



THE ISLAND 87 

to the State of Washington. It is only some fifteen 
miles across from Victoria to this foreign island. 
But North America is in a more fortunate position 
than Europe ; there is not a single fortification 
along the whole length of the International 
Boundary. The very term used is significant ; it 
is not a frontier, simply a boundary. 

But the most striking feature of the trip is the 
great Olympic Range away in the distance, domi- 
nating the view by its majestic grandeur, a great 
rugged chain of peaks extending along the south 
side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. 

Then we double Gonzales Point, passing close 

to Trial Islands, and steam up past the Golf Links, 

the Wireless Station, the Cemetery, the Rifle Range, 

Beacon Hill, the Outer Wharf, and finally turn in 

to the narrow entrance of Victoria Harbour, Work 

Point with its barracks on the left, industrial 

wharves on the right, then round the soapworks 

point, and up to our berth on the C.P.R. wharf close 

to the handsome Government Buildings. 

* * * * * 

Although we pass among the Gulf Islands on 
the way across, we don't call anywhere ; these 
beautiful islands, lying right between two great 
cities, are really very much isolated. There is a 
steamer once a week which calls at a number of 
places on the islands, but if you want to get about 
among them it is necessary to have a launch. 

Some of the larger islands are already well under 
cultivation ; the numerous ranches send their pro- 
ducts to Victoria, Nanaimo, Ladysmith, Vancouver, 
and other places. But other islands are still 
covered with dense forest ; logging camps are busy 



88 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

in places. Some of the smaller islands are only 
used for sheep grazing ; there is not sufficient water 
on them for human habitation. 

It is delightful to travel about among the islands 
in a launch, landing here and there and walking 
through a perfect natural park, over soft, velvety 
grass, among the cedars and hemlocks, or along 
a rocky beach, taking to the launch again where 
further progress is difficult. Sometimes we go into 
a long, narrow bay, perhaps two or three miles 
long, high rocky bluffs on each side, surmounted 
by a dense forest growth. Then we come to a 
beautiful little sandy beach, and a flat valley where 
a rancher has settled. At nightfall we stop at some 
such ranch, or perhaps a lighthouse, to sleep ; 
they are all very hospitable, but the accommodation 
is naturally somewhat limited. 

In some of the narrow passages between the 
islands there are very strong tidal currents. The 
tides are most irregular, owing to the complexity 
of the various channels, and the two daily high 
tides may come much closer together than one 
would think possible. There is generally one big 
tide and one small one, that is to say, that whereas 
one tide rises and falls ten or fifteen feet, the other 
may have a height of only a couple of feet ; the 
combinations in some places are most weird. 

Some very peculiar freaks are seen among the 
rocks ; at one place there is an isolated piece of 
rock standing out some distance from the cliff, with 
a gable roof like a small house. 

On Gabriola Island, not far from Nanaimo, is 
the famous Malaspina Gallery, where a soft bed 
of sandstone has been hollowed out by the sea 



THE ISLAND 89 

to a depth of ten or fifteen feet over quite a long 
distance, the harder bed overhanging giving a 
peculiar and picturesque effect. 

This is one of the most beautiful of all the 
islands. On one occasion, as I was landing 
from a launch on the rocky shore, she grounded just 
as I stepped off. We tried to prize her off with the 
boathook, and finding that useless, we tried by 
wading to ease her a bit, using logs for levers, but 
the tide was falling so fast that all our efforts were 
vain, and there she remained for seven hours until 
the tide had turned and risen sufficiently to float 
her again. Meanwhile I had lots of time to see 
that part of the island, which is well under culti- 
vation, there being numerous ranches, and a road 
as good as an English country road (which is very 
much better than anything on the mainland) 
running along the coast. The grass appeared 
greener there than anywhere else I have seen in 
B.C. ; one might imagine oneself transplanted into 
the Old Country, so homelike does it all look. 
* * * * * 

Seventy miles up the coast from Victoria is 
the little colliery town of Nanaimo. When I 
describe it as a colliery town you will no 
doubt conjure up visions of chimneys, and smoke, 
and grime, and dismal rows of dirty, gloomy 
houses. 

But nothing could be farther from the reality., 
Although one of the collieries is practically in the 
town, the workings extending all under the harbour, 
Nanaimo is the brightest, cleanest, sunniest, and 
most cheerful little place imaginable ; the miners 
(the term " collier " is not used here) live in comfort- 



90 THE CALL' OF THE WEST 

able little wooden cottages, each in its own garden, 
in which great pride is taken, and they go to and 
from their work mostly on bicycles. And the better 
class residences are most attractive ; it is really 
a charming place ; the climate is even better than 
in Victoria. 

The Western Fuel Company has very seldom had 
any trouble with its men ; the relations between 
employers and employed are of the most cordial.. 
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the 
Wellington Collieries, formerly owned by the 
Dunsmuirs, and now by a subsidiary company of 
the Canadian Northern Railway. Their shipping 
ports are Ladysmith, twelve miles south-east of 
Nanaimo, and Comox, sixty miles farther up the 
coast. 

Each company has great wharves and bunkers ; 
for by far the greater part of the coal goes off 
by sea, not only across to Vancouver, but also in 
great quantities down the coast to California and 
Mexico. A lot also goes to Alaska. This is all 
put up in small sacks like ore, so as to be more 
easily handled when frozen, for it naturally cannot 
be kept dry. The coasting steamers generally call 
at one or other of the Island ports to fill their 
bunkers. 

The most prominent thing in Nanaimo is the old 
Hudson's Bay Company bastion, a relic of the old 
days when it was necessary to fortify the place 
against the Indians. 

Between Victoria and Nanaimo there are some 
beautiful farming and residential districts. Duncans 
especially is a great place for retired Army men 
and others to settle in, playing at farming, or really 



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THE ISLAND 91 

going in for it seriously, and it would be hard to 

find a more delightful place for the purpose. 

Coming up the railway from Victoria, past 

Goldstream, the Saanich Inlet is skirted for some 

miles ; the precipitous, rocky scenery is simply 

grand. Then we get out into the more open ranching 

country. It is only a strip a few miles in width 

along the coast, mostly densely timbered except 

where it has been cleared ; the greater part of 

the Island is mountains, the West Coast being very 

rugged. But there are fine valleys in many parts, 

which only want railways to bring them within. 

reach of the market. 

***** 

The Island is almost cut in two by the long, 
narrow Alberni Canal, which comes in from the 
West Coast. The little port of Alberni at its head 
is only about twelve miles from the East Coast. 
It was boomed for a long time as the coming 
Pacific port of the C.P.R., but that has subsided 
since the line there has been opened. Port Alberni 
will no doubt one day take its place as one of 
several West Coast ports, but it is not very suitable 
for large ocean steamers, especially when there is 
such a magnificent harbour as Quatsino farther up. 

The C.P.R. lines on the Island are known as 
the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, that being 
the name of the original line before it was taken 
over by the C.P.R. The depot in Victoria is worthy 
of the smallest and most remote village in the 
Dominion, being a disgrace to the capital of the 
province. But no doubt, when the railway is 
through to the northern end of the Island, a new 
depot will be built in Victoria. 



92 THE CALL 1 OE THE WEST 

There is another station in the city, that of the 
Victoria and Sidney Terminal Railway, belonging 
to the Great Northern, one of the great American 
railroad systems in the North -West. The V. and S.T. 
Railway is about the limit for a one-horse concern. 
It is only eighteen miles long, running to Sidney 
on the Saanich Peninsula, where a ferry connects 
with the mainland fifty miles away. The B.C. 
Electric has built a line out through the peninsula, 
which will seriously knock the V. and S.T. The 
latter has within recent years built a new station,, 
which, although very small, is bright and clean ; 
formerly the train ran in to a dilapidated little 
apology for a wooden platform at the back of thle 
market, and the booking-office was a dingy little 
cabin in the market building. 

The Canadian Northern has been busy for the 
last few years building a line from Victoria up 
through the interior of the Island to Alberni, and 
thence on towards Campbell River on the East 
Coast. This will open up a lot of new country. 
The E. and N. is also building in the direction of 
Campbell River, and both lines will no doubt be 
continued later on to Quatsino. 

The Grand Trunk Pacific is also to have an Island 
line, but that has not been started yet. 

$ $ $ $ $ 

Campbell River is just north of the 50th 
parallel, not far from Seymour Narrows. It is a 
favourite fishing resort ; both river and sea fishing 
are excellent. 

There are several logging camps in the neighbour- 
hood ; the timber is some of the best on the Island, 
trees four and five feet in diameter being quite 






THE ISLAND, 93 



common, mostly Douglas fir and cedar. There is 
some hemlock too, but that is of no value except 
for pulp. A short railway line connects the camps 
with the mouth of the river. It is an interesting 

I sight to see the great logs being pushed off the 
flat cars into the water by a kind of steam ram, 

I working with a sweeping motion. 

In the river mouth the logs are collected into 
vast " booms " and towed down by tugs to the 
lumber mills on the Fraser and elsewhere. Occa- 
sionally in a storm a " boom " breaks, and the 
valuable timber is scattered all over the Strait, 
logs being washed up on the beach at all sorts of 
places. 

A logging camp is considered one of the roughest 
places in the wild and woolly West ; some pretty 
tough characters are met with among the lumber- 
jacks, and when they start fighting with their 
caulked boots on there is liable to be fun. 

But on the Canadian side of the line the law is 
held in considerable respect. At Campbell River 
they seem to have a very decent lot of men as 
a rule, including, as everywhere, a large proportion 
of Scandinavians and Finns. 

The river itself is quite a small one, but about 
a dozen miles from the mouth there is a high fall, 
where the possibilities of power development are 
considerable. At the foot of the falls the river 
takes a sudden turn of more than a right angle to 
the left. 

* * * '* * 

It is only a few miles across to Valdes Island, 
really a group of three islands, separated from each 
other and from the mainland by narrow channels. 



94 THE CALL OE THE WEST 

The steamship route is between Vancouver Island 
and these smaller ones. At one place it is 
so narrow that the tide race is terrific, and all but 
the largest steamers have to wait for a favourable 
tide before attempting the passage. This is the 
famous Seymour Narrows. 

If there is a strong wind against the tide the sea 
is liable to be pretty heavy. On one occasion I 
was returning from the Queen Charlotte Islands 
on a small steamer, when after passing through 
Seymour Narrows with the tide, the head -wind, 
coming up the Straits against the tide, created such 
a choppy sea that the screw of the steamer was 
racing half the time, and it was impossible to steer 
her ; she would swing half round with every big 
wave. After trying to buck it for a time, the 
captain took advantage of a particularly big wave 
to swing her right round, and we went back into 
a bay in Valdes Island to shelter until the sea calmed 
down a bit in the evening. It certainly can be 
pretty rough in this neighbourhood if it wants to. 

There has been a talk for some time of bridging 
Seymour Narrows so as to bring the Island into 
direct railway communication with the mainland. 
Perhaps it will be done some day, but it will be 
a great undertaking. 

Up towards the north-western end of the Island 
there are some interesting places. The coasting 
steamers call at the little settlement of Sointula, 
where all the settlers are Finns ; at other points 
the Scandinavian element seems to preponderate. 

But the most interesting port of call is Alert Bay, 
an Indian village, presided over by a missionary. 




DUMPING LOGS INTO THE WATER AT THE MOUTH OF CAMPBELL RIVER. 




CHIEF S HOUSE AND TOTEM POLES, ALERT BAY. 



To face p. 94. 



THE ISLAND 95 

Here are the most famous totem poles of the whole 
British Columbian coast, and fearful and wonderful 
they certainly are ! Unfortunately, a number of 
them have been bought and taken away for 
museums and other places, but a fine lot remain 
there. Behind one totem pole an enormous pair of 
wings has been painted on the house, giving it a: 
very imposing appearance when seen from a 
distance. On either side of the house of Chief 
Tlahcoglas is a fearsome winged monster, sur- 
mounting a series of frogs, semi-human faces, and 
such things, the sort of monster one would not 
like to meet alone on a dark night. 

There is a prevalent idea that totem poles are 
objects of worship, but that is entirely erroneous ; 
they are the family coats -of -arms, which, instead 
of being displayed on silver, and carriages, and 
writing-paper, are put up in front of the house. 
The various grotesque figures on each pole — men, 
fishes, frogs, birds, etc.— all have a significance 
understood by those versed in this system of 
heraldry. 

***** 

Then, farther up again, we pass the colliery at 
Suquash, and a few miles beyond is Port Hardy, 
another place which has been boomed as a coming 
great city— why, it is rather hard to understand. 

The first time I went to Quatsino was by this 
route. It is only eleven miles across the trail from 
Port Hardy to Coal Harbour on Quatsino Sound. 
The mail is taken in over this trail every week, 
as the steamer only goes up the West Coast twice 
a month. A certain amount of money is spent 
1 every year in keeping the trail in order, apparently 



96 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

with the object of affording employment to a 
number of men, for if they would only make a 
wagon-road once and for all, it would need much 
less patching up afterwards, and would be infi- 
nitely more useful. Horses could be taken over the 
trail if there were any to take, but the mail-carrier 
packs the mail -bag on his back. He comes from 
Quatsino settlement in a launch, which comes again 
for him on his return trip the next day, and takes 
any passengers that may have come across this 
way. 

After toiling over the eleven miles with a heavy 
pack on your back, stumbling over roots every now 
and then, the first view of Quatsino Sound is a most 
welcome sight. The timber is so dense that we 
don't see anything of it until we are almost there, 
coming down the hill towards Coal Harbour ; then 
we catch a glimpse through the trees of a great 
sheet of water, and soon afterwards we come upon 
it. A rapid descent brings us to the shore of a 
deep bay, where coal was discovered many years 
ago, but which has never been thoroughly pros- 
pected yet. 

Beyond Coal Harbour the West Arm extends 
twenty miles up to the westwards, a long, narrow 
inlet, reduced in places to half a mile in width. 
At the far end is the settlement of Holberg, where 
the rich St. Joseph Valley is gradually being settled 
by a large colony of Scandinavians, who are 
valiantly tackling the very heavy clearing that is 
necessary before the ground can be brought under 
cultivation. 

On our left is the Rupert Arm, extending for 
seven miles back towards the East Coast. Opposite 



THE ISLAND 97 

us this portion of the Sound is some three miles 
wide, a magnificent sheet of water. But unfortu- 
nately it is separated from the main Sound by the 
Narrows, a deep gorge through which the tidal 
current is something fierce. 

The launch goes through Hying with the tide, 
between the high rocky bluffs on either side, the 
water swirling and raging all round us, and after 
an exciting passage, we emerge into Quatsino Sound 
proper. If the inner portion excited our admira- 
tion, what can we say of the outer? It is one of 
the finest harbours in the world, stretching for 
twenty miles from the mouth of the Narrows to 
the open sea. the entrance being well protected 
and completely landlocked. It is a magnificent sheet 
of water, and undoubtedly destined to become a 
great port before very many years have passed. 

:•: • * H: * 

There are a number of deep inlets extending 
for some distance from the main Sound, one, the 
South-East Arm, having a length of some fourteen 
miles and a width of only about a mile, being 
hemmed in by steep mountains on either side. A 
number of mineral locations arc situated along this 
arm, but so far none have reached the shipping 
stage. 

It was on another of these inlets, Koprino 

i Harbour, that I once had occasion to steal a canoe. 
I was out for a few days with a gasolene launch, 

I making excursions inland at different points each 
day. On one occasion I had been following a creek 
up from the head of a long, narrow lagoon opening 

'on Koprino Harbour, and left it until rather late 

'in the afternoon before turning back. Travelling 

7 



98 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

is exceedingly difficult anywhere on Vancouver 
Island, the undergrowth is so dense ; sometimes 
it is impossible to force one's way through along 
a creek and one is obliged to make a detour along 
the higher ground. Or in a ravine we may get 
into a patch of devil's club, a plant that well 
deserves its name. You step on a portion of the 
stem which grows horizontally, when suddenly 
another portion of it which grows nearly upright 
gives you a sharp blow. It is covered all over, 
the enormous, spreading leaves as well as the thick, 
wood3 r stem, with little thorns which are the very 
devil if you get them into your skin. And they 
have a way of penetrating through your clothes 
too if you are not very careful. You must wear 
thick gloves if you want to attempt to negotiate a 
patch of devil's club. But nobody would think 
of going into the bush at any season without 
these. 

Travelling at that particular place was rendered 
more difficult still on account of the enormous 
number of windfalls, a reminder of the " Great 
Wind," or tornado, which swept this part a few 
years ago. Enormous forest giants were torn up 
by the roots and hurled down in thousands, but 
only over a very narrow track. It happened that 
I was within that track ; there were great logs, 
a hundred feet and often much more in length, 
lying with their butts raised ten or fifteen feet from 
the ground by a mass of roots. One might travel 
half a mile, climbing over, under, and between these 
logs without touching terra firma at all. Sometimes 
one came to an impasse, and had to go back two 
or three hundred yards and try again. 



THE ISLAND 99 

So my progress was not rapid, but ultimately, 
to my intense relief, I reached the head of the 
lagoon, only to find that the tide had gone out, so 
I knew that I would ineel the launch at Ihe mouth 
of the lagoon, half a mile farther on. 

I started Lo make my way along close to the 
water's edge, but soon came to a cliiT rising sheer 
up two hundred feet. So I had lo retrace my 
steps for some distance, and climb up, hanging on 
by the skin of my teeth, for a height of about 
three hundred feet, and proceed along the high 
ground. Here I found the windfalls worse than 
ever, and progress was exceedingly slow. Dusk 
was rapidly falling, and 1 heard riile-shols fired 
from the launch to guide me. 

I had lost sight of the lagoon for some time, but 
knew that by keeping on westwards I must strike 
Koprino Harbour somewhere near the mouth of 
the lagoon. It was November, and darkness was 
coming on very fast, when al lasl from a height I 
caught sight of water ahead. Joyfully I made my 
way towards it, jumping from log to log, climbing 
under one and over another, forcing my way 
through thick masses of underbrush, anything to 
reach the shore before dark, for if I got caught 
by darkness in this tangle, it would be a sheer 
impossibility to make my way out before the moon 

rose. 

* * * * * 

Finally, lo my great relief, I found myself at 
the top of a rocky slope, at the foot of which was 
the water, and there was, moreover, a dark object 
moving along the face of the water. 

Hurriedly I made my way down, and shouted to 



100 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

the Indian in the canoe, for such it proved to be. 
He had come quite close in by the time I reached 
the water's edge, and in my best Chinook I tried 
to explain to him that there was a launch round 
the point to the right, and that I wanted him to 
take me to it ; but he said that the tide was out, 
and he couldn't get there, besides which the launch 
must be a long way off. After a long argument he 
consented to take me on board, but instead of going 
towards the launch, he went in the opposite direc- 
tion along the shore, to the rancheree half a mile 
off, where he was living, apparently alone, all the 
other Indians being employed at the cannery across 
the Sound. 

At the rancheree he pulled the canoe up on 
the shore, and made it fast, refusing point 
blank to let me take it out and go tp the launch 
myself. 

So I set off along the shore, but presently had to 
climb up on to a rocky height, and could get no 
farther without going through the bush. It was 
now quite dark, and travelling through the bush 
was altogether out of the question. 

Knowing that I couldn't be very far from the 
mouth of the lagoon, I shouted repeatedly at the 
top of my voice, when, to my surprise, an answering 
shout came from the opposite direction, farther out. 
Making my way back towards the rancheree, I 
continued shouting, and the answer grew gradually 
louder. So I kept on, right past the rancheree. 
where the smoke was rising from my friend's shack, 
and out towards the next point. Evidently, the tide 
having gone out, my man had taken his launch out 
after firing the rifle-shots, and anchored her farther 




QUATSINO INDIAN VILLAGE 




INDIAN CANOES, QUATSINO. 



To face p. 100. 



THE ISLAND 101 

out, where there was still water, for this side of 
Koprino Harbour is very shallow. 

The answering shouts were very plain now, and 
1 felt that if I could get round that next point, 
a mile from the rancheree, I should see the launch 
close by. But as I approached the point, the rocky 
shore came to an end. and 1 had to climb up on 
to the bank. The trees grew right down on the 
edge, overhanging the water, but I struggled on 
a little farther, climbing in among the trees and 
underbrush, for the open water below enabled me 
to see a little, but soon I had to come to a halt. 
Then I shouted again, and, oh, horror ! the reply 
came from away back in the opposite direction, 
and I knew, as I had hall suspected for some 
time, thai the answering shout had been nothing 
but a mocking echo all along, and that I had come 
all this way on a wild-goose chase ! 

So sorrowfully 1 made my way back to the 
rancheree. My clothes were wet, and my feet 
soaking after all this travelling through the bush, 
and having no matches I couldn't light a lire. It 
was beginning to get cold, and a mist was rising. 
I therefore decided to go to the old Siwash's 
shack, and ask if he would let me sit by the fire. 
He made me welcome, but still wouldn't listen to 
any proposal to borrow his canoe. He had already 
had his supper, but offered to give me some. Not 
being able to explain in Chinook that I was a 
vegetarian, I had to refuse, although I was distinctly 
hungry. So he lay down again, fully clothed, rolled 
up in his blanket, his head resting on a sloping 
wooden pillow, which certainly did not look par- 
ticularly comfortable, and after having pointed out 



102 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

to me where I could get more wood to mamook 
piah~i.e. " make fire "—he addressed himself to 
Morpheus. 

The fire was very comforting after being outside 
in the damp mist, but in my wet condition I didn't 
fancy stopping there all night. I knew that the 
tide must have turned about half-past eight, and 
that three hours later the launch should be afloat 
again. By that time the moon, which was full, 
would be high enough up to shine down into this 
side of the harbour. So I made my plans 
accordingly. 

My aged friend was soon snoring volubly on his 
hard couch, and I let the fire dwindle, and waited 
in patience. 

At half -past eleven I went stealthily to the door, 
and cautiously raised the latch and opened it. The 
door creaked so loudly that I was sure my host 
would wake, but to my unbounded relief, he 
continued peacefully snoring. 

Outside I was cheered by the sight of the full 
moon high in the heavens. The mist had gone, 
and the scene w r as beautiful in the extreme : the 
white shell beach, the deep blue of the smooth 
water of the harbour, the little rocky islands dotted 
about, the high rock bluffs above, and the ghostly 
trees ; a brilliantly lit scene where the moon shone, 
dark and mysterious shadows where the silvery 
rays failed to reach. 

Cautiously making my way to the beach, I undid 
the painter, and dragged the canoe half-way down 
to the water's edge. It was freezing now, and the 
beach, composed of small fragments of shells, made 



THE ISLAND 103 

a crackling as I walked over it loud enough to 
waken the dead. What was my dismay, on getting 
half-way down to the water, to find that the heavy 
stone anchor had been thrown out right up at the 
top among the grass ! So hastily I returned for it, 
expecting every moment to see my aged host 
emerging from the shack door to see what was 
going on. But he never appeared, and I got the 
anchor safely into the canoe, pushed her down into 
the water, stepped inside and paddled rapidly off, 
looking back every now and then towards the 
shack. 

A quarter of an hour's paddling brought me to 
the mouth of the lagoon, and there, over on the 
other side, still high and dry, was the launch. 

Pushing on as far as I could, I threw out the 
anchor, and walked across the intervening two 
hundred yards of hard sand and climbed on board, 
much to the relief of my man, who had been 
wondering what had become of me. 

It was not very long before she was alloat again, 
and we went off and picked up the canoe, anchor- 
ing at 3 a.m. in deeper water for the rest of the 
night. 

In the morning we moved off towards the 
rancheree with the canoe in tow, and were presently 
met by another canoe with two Indians in it. So 
there evidently had been another man somewhere 
about, and another canoe. My late host griuned 
broadly as we approached, evidently appreciating 
the joke, and caught his canoe, which I released 
in passing, but it was not until I had called his 
attention to it that he noticed the dollar bill that I 
had stuck in the bow to propitiate him. Then he 



104 THE CALL OF THE; WEST 

grinned more than ever, and paddled oil quite 
happily. 

* * * * * 

The settlement of Quatsino is very scattered ; 
ranchers have taken up land all over the Sound, 
but there are a number of settlers close together 
about three miles from the Indian village of 
Quatsino. It is a beautiful situation: to the east 
are the Narrows, to the west the mountains rise up 
a couple of thousand feet, densely timbered, to the 
north is the West Arm, and to the south the main 
Sound ; it is a splendid site for a large city, which 
there will undoubtedly be here before very many 
years have passed. There are rival townsites at 
various points on the Sound, but the Settlement is 
well located ; it is the pick of them all. 

The Narrows will have to be bridged by the 
railwa3's in order to reach it, but that will not be 
such a very big job. There is certainly the making 
of a really magnificent city at Quatsino, and the 
harbour is worth a dozen of Vancouver, fine as 
that undoubtedly is. Moreover, it is a substantially 
shorter distance to the Orient from Quatsino than 
from any other port on the coast, except Prince 
Rupert, and the difference between these is only 
forty miles. It is not generally known that 
sailing on a great circle from Prince Rupert to 
Yokohama is impossible, the Aleutian Islands 
intervene, whereas the great circle from Quatsino 
just escapes them. 

Of course, Quatsino has the disadvantage that it 
is not on the mainland, and, unless Seymour 
Narrows are bridged, it will only be the shipping 
port for perishable goods and passengers ; ordinary 



THE ISLAND 105 

freight will continue to go from Vancouver. But 
in the event of a bridge being built over Seymour 
Narrows, Quatsino will probably become the chief 
Pacific Port of at least one trans -continental railway. 
So the inhabitants are justified in their sanguine 

belief in the future of the place. 

***** 

The enterprising Norwegian mail -carrier has built 
a handsome villa, which he uses as a guest-house, 
the only hotel in the place being on an island 
some four miles away. 

There is a large Scandinavian element in the 
population, many having come from the Middle 
West of the States, where their parents settled forty 
or fifty years ago. 

On one occasion when I was there, a dance was 
given in the little public hall, and people came in 
by the dozen ; one wondered where they all came 
from. 

And these Scandinavians are beautiful dancers 
in spite of their heavy appearance and the fact 
that most of them were wearing heavy boots ! To 
see the mail -carrier go over the trail from Port 
Hardy, one would hardly imagine him to be a 
dancing man, but he is the Master of Ceremonies, 
and the lightest and most active dancer in the 
whole room, with the possible exception of his 
buxom wife, and two little girls, who must have 
learnt all their dancing from their parents. It is 
quite a revelation to find such grace and agility, and 
thorough familiarity with many complicated dances, 
in such a remote corner of the globe. 

All except those who have only recently come 
out from the homeland speak English perfectly, with 



106 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

the exception of the letter " j," which many of 
them cannot help pronouncing like " y." The com- 
bination ' v th " is easily mastered by them. 

Most of the settlers are just holding on to their 
land, waiting for the railways to come, only growing 
enough to keep themselves going with the help of 
a few poultry. Very few of them could be accused 
of doing much work. 

Last time I was at Quatsino there was a new 
schoolma'am recently out from England. She was 
being chaffed mercilessly about everything English ; 
the Canadians make a great point of that with all 
new-comers. If they get nasty then they are in for 
a pretty bad time, but if they take the chaff in good 
part they soon become acclimatized, and pass from 
the cheechahko stage to that of an old hand. 

This schoolma'am was so particularly sweet- 
tempered that they chaffed her more than ever, 
just for the fun of it, but she had already won 
the heart of every one in the place. She some- 
times had very amusing experiences through not 
knowing the Canadian colloquialisms, which abound 
in ordinary conversation, and her English accent 
sounded strange out there. Many English girls go 
out as school-teachers, but they don't usually teach 
school very long; they are seldom out for six 
months before they get married, and this one will 
certainly prove no exception. 

***** 

Near the entrance to the Narrows is the Indian 
village, a picturesque row of houses along the water- 
front, some with weird devices painted on them, 
others with totem poles in front. On the front of 
one house, rather larger than the rest, among other 





I'M N 1 ID HOUS1 



N \ 1 1\ 1 GR \\ 1 S. 




CH1EI s HOI SE, QUATSINO. 



To face p. ic6. 



THE ISLAND 107 

ornamentations is the white figurehead ot a ship, 
the usual conventional female figure. Was il a 
piece of wreckage washed up on the shore after 
some storm, or was it a trophy carried olY in battle? 
Possibly some ship exploring this coast may have 
been driven by a storm against the rocks outside. It 
sin 1 had been abb 1 to make the entrance of the 
Sound she would have been sale in any weather. 
If any of the crew survived, they may have spent 
weary years in slavery at Quatsiuo afterwards. 
Who knows? 

I couldn't find any one who had any Imowledg* 
of the origin of this figurehead, which g 
silently across the Sound with sueh a fixed, inscrut- 
able smile, a veritable Sphinx, jealously guarding 
its secret. 

But this while man s totem. Bet up amidst those 
of the red men. conveys a message to us. a message 
from those brave men who met a watery grave. 

or worse, thirty, fifty, perhaps a hundred or more 

years ago. They lost their Lives, but their sacrifice 
was not in vain, their Labour was not lost. The 
work they helped to do has been carried on. until 
now, alter all its weary years of solitary vigil, with 
its message ol hope Locked up in its breast the 
only while thing in the Sound, surrounded by the 
totems of the red men. the White Totem can at 
last gaze out over the Sound in quiet content, for 
it is gazing upon a white man's country. 

The whole of Vancouver Island has lor many 
vears been part of the British Empire but it is 
only within comparatively recent years that 
Quatsino has become a settlement. 

Filly years hence possibly the Indian Keserva- 



108 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

tion will have been shifted farther away, to make 
room for the growing city of Quatsino, and the 
white totem will adorn a public park. Let us 
hope it will be treated with the honour it deserves. 

* * * * * 

All the Indians except a few old men and women 
are employed at the cannery, fifteen miles down 
the Sound ; when I visited the village there was 
scarcely a soul to be seen, but it was there that I 
came across the one and only klootch I have met 
who didn't object to having her photograph taken. 
Generally it is necessary to use a reflecting view 
finder, and take them unawares, under which 
conditions it is difficult to get a good picture, but 
this dear old lady not only did not object, but 
was highly delighted at the prospect of having her 
picture taken, and her great anxiety was as to 
whether her hair and dress were kloshe. 

* * * # * 

The trip along the West Coast of the Island is 
one which is not usually taken for pleasure ; it 
is generally rough, often excessively so, the full 
swell of the Pacific beating against the wild; rocky 
coast. The fallacy that the Pacific is always calm 
is somewhat dispelled when one learns that at the 
lighthouse on Triangle Island, off the north-western 
extremity of Vancouver Island, the average wind 
throughout the year blows at forty miles an hour, 
and that hundred-mile gales are of frequent occur- 
rence. 

The old Tees, which was running up there 
at the time of my last trip, left much to be desired, 
being small, and designed more for the accommoda- 
tion of freight than passengers, but now there is 



THE ISLAND 109 

a fine new boat on the run. so a West Coast trip 
will be much more pleasant. 

But, for one who doesn't mind a bit of weather, 
the trip on the Tees was most enjoyable, 
provided she was not crowded. It is not always 
rough ; once I made the trip with the sea like 
a millpond. 

We have to keep well out from the coast on 
account of the multitude of reefs extending lor 
miles (Jill from the shore, some entirely submerged, 
some visible at low water. In places jagged black 
rocks stand up out of the water three or four miles 
from the land. It is a glorious sight lo see the 
breakers on the reel's, and the waves dashing against 
the exposed rocks, throwing great masses ol" spray 
a hundred feet up into the air. Particularly by 
moonlight the scene is enchanting. Hut it is not 
a place in which one would care to be in a small 
boat, driven before the wind ! 

There are many deep inlets in this coast, and 
a portion of the trip is through inland channels. 
The trip between QuaUino and Victoria takes three 
days, the passage being so circuitous, and the calls 
numerous, at canneries, mining and other settle- 
ments, with jaw-breaking Indian names— Ahaleset. 
Ueluelel. Clayoquol (pron. Clahquol . Uchucklesit, 
and so on. 

One of the largest Indian villages is Xootka, 
famous for the beautiful baskets which the natives 
used to make, and also as being the last place at 
which Captain Cook landed before setting out on 
the voyage during the course of which he met his 
death, being killed in a fight with natives in the 
Sandwich Islands. On a little islet close to the 



110 THE CALL OF THE WEST; 

village there is a monument erected to his memory. 
It was here that the first permanent white settlement 
was established in all of what is now British 
Columbia. That was in 1788. In the following 
year it was seized by a party of Spaniards, an act 
which very nearly caused a war between England 
and Spain. There have been some interesting doings 
on this remote coast ! 

Then there is the trip up the long, narrow 7 
Alberni Canal to the port of that name, down again, 
and into the wireless station at Bamfield, out into 
the open sea again, past beautiful sandy beaches, 
which will make splendid watering-places when 
they are rendered get-at-able, and then into the 
Strait of Juan de Fuca, the light of Cape Flattery 
visible in the distance, and in the morning we finish 
up in the tiny harbour of dear old Victoria once 
more. 



CHAPTER IV 

BEAK RIVER 

A trip up into the interior is always a thing to 
be looked forward to, and to be remembered after- 
wards with keen delight ; the hardships and 
dangers arc forgotten, and the pure joy of the 
glorious freedom of travelling and sojourning in 
a virgin land is alone thoughl of. The open-air 

life, the vastness of the country, the endless forests, 
the perilous journeys <>n strange rivers, the wild 
denizens of the woods, the mysterious, silent moun- 
tains, the superb views opening up unexpectedly, 
the very dangers encountered- all these have a 
fascination totally unknown to those whose travels 
are confined to inhabited countries. 

What a delightful sense of freedom there is in 
the feeling that one can travel as far as one wants 
in any direction and choose a camping-ground 
on some grassy meadow, with pleasant, sheltering 
trees, and a babbling streamlet flowing by, with- 
out the fear of being turned off the ground as a 
trespasser ' And then to repeat the process in- 
definitely, exploring new country every day, going 
where few white men have been, where cariboo 
and moose and bear still roam undisturbed ! 

The place at which you turn your back on all 
forms of public conveyance and arrange your own 

111 



112 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

transportation is known in the parlance of the 
country as your " jumping-off place," a most ex- 
pressive term. 

The Bear River in question l (for there are many 
Bear Rivers in British Columbia) has its source 
near Barkerville, the old metropolis of the Cariboo, 
but it passes at one point within a little over forty 
miles of Fort George, and it was not very far 
from that point that we were going, so the question 
was, whether Barkerville or Fort George was to 
be our jumping-off place. A party of surveyors 
from Fort George were going out to make a survey 
of the ground for us, so we decided to make for 
that place and travel with them. 

$ $ $ * * 

The trip up the C.P.R. through the Fraser River 
Canon to Lytton I have already described to you. 
At Lytton the railway leaves the Fraser and follows 
up the Thompson, itself a river of fair size. 

On emerging from the Coast Range we have 
entered the " dry belt," a strip of country between 
the Coast Range and the Selkirks, where the rain- 
fall is so small that it presents quite a desert 
appearance ; there is no grass, only dry, cracked 
earth and sage-brush. Rather a change from the 
luxuriant forest growth of the coast and its heavy 
rainfall ! One would think that one had been 
suddenly transplanted by some magical process to 
Colorado or Mexico, the scenery seems so utterly 
different from that of our northern latitudes ! 

But 210, there is still the construction work of 
the Canadian Northern on the other side of the 
Thompson, paralleling the C.P.R. At one place 
1 Tbis one haR since been re-named Bowron River. 



BEAR RIVER 113 

the bare face of a mountain that has been cut into 
by the river rises two thousand feet up. one con- 
tinuous rock -slide the whole way. What a place 
to carry a railway across ! What a place to carry 
even a survey line across ! I once travelled up 
to Kamloops with a surveyor who had missed his 
footing on one of these slides, and had been carried 
down, utterly helpless, for six hundred feet anions 
a mass of sliding fragments of rock with gradually 
increasing speed until he reached the river below. 
He kept hold of his transit and saved it. and by a 
miracle he himself escaped with no broken bones, 
but his nerves were so shaken that, even after 
spending a year on leave, he couldn't face work 
in such a plaee again, and no wonder I 

When one sees the plaee before the railway is 
built one can realize to some extent the difficulties 
that have to be contended with . when we travel 
in the comfortable coaches we are rather inclined 
to forget all this, to forget about the men who have 
risked their lives, the many who have sacrificed 
their lives, that we might travel in safely and 
comfort. The little wayside crosses arc never 
seen by the ordinary traveller, their very exist- 
ence is ignored, bul each of them has a tale to 
tell, each of them represents a life suddenly cut 
short in its prime by one or other of the many 
dangers which are being faced every day by these 
pioneers. 

The labourers employed in the railway construc- 
tion Avork come from all over Europe and North 
America ; many of them speak si range, outlandish 
tongues, and understand scarcely any English. 
Many of the accidents are due to this very cause, 

8 



114 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

men failing to understand their orders and disobey- 
ing them in consequence. " It was his own fault," 
one hears ; " the foreman took all possible precau- 
tions, but he was naturally stupid, and acted flatly 
against orders, and so met his death." But think 
of the other side of the case : a rough, uneducated, 
hardy son of toil, recently out from his home some- 
where away in the backwoods of Austria, nine 
thousand miles from every earthly tie, in a strange 
land, among people who speak a strange language. 
One cannot but admire his pluck. If he did disobey 
orders it was because he didn't understand them ; 
if he was stupid, it was not his fault that he was 
not born clever. Let us remember that he faced the 
danger and died the death of a hero, unknown and 
far from home, and let us sometimes think of the 
significance of these little crosses as we pass along 
in the comfortable cars ! 

At intervals along the Thompson River we see 
ferries by means of which materials are carried 
across from the supply depots on the near side. 
The construction camps, too, are mostly on this 
side ; there is no room on the other. 

The rocks through which the river is cut some- 
times assume weird and fantastic shapes ; the schist 
is cut through by many hard dikes, which stand out 
in the river, forming grotesque figures. 

Tea is served in the observation car. It is 
amusing to see all the Englishmen taking their after- 
noon tea. You seldom see ladies indulging in that 
luxury unless they are from the Old Country 
too. 

The true Canadian will not look at it, and it is 
really quite unnecessary when one dines at six or 



BEAR RIVER 115 

half-past, although it tonus an agreeable variety 

in the afternoon. 

* * * * * 

Ashcrofl is reached about 5.30, and her- we 
have to spend the night. There are two Iintds. lor 
it is an important point, being the jumping-off place, 
as far as the railway is concerned, For the great 
interior, which is reached over the famous Cariboo 
road. The town consists of one long street and 
three or four abortive attempts at cross-etreets 
most uninteresting plaoe, surrounded by desert ss 
brush country. This sage-brush country, however. 
only nerds irrigation t<> become moat fertile, 
Although f< n from the railway, Unit 

numerous ranches all round, and Ashcrofl p 

are famous throughout the \\ \ 

The valley here is about half a mile wide, with 
rounded hills on either ildi A good road leads 
t<» Clinton, thirty Qve mi ly, where the Cariboo 

io t <d is joined, and this is U it highway to tin* 

north. The old hors( l< avi b at I a.m., tra 

ling till it) p.m., and reaching Soda Creek lata on 
the second night, but for the last ivw years then 
Have been aul i for the conveyance ot i 

sengers, whos< I i scut on with the mail in tin 

horse-stage, thereby enabling th< ngi rs to start 

at the more Christian hour of eight each morning, 
and to stop at a decent time In the evening, d< p< rid- 
ing upon how many breakdowns there have been 

and what pro. has been mad.'. Thus So 

k is reached some time on the second day with 
more or less comfort. 

During the spring and summer there is a constant 
stream of traffic going in over the road families 



116 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

going in to take up land, with all their earthly 
belongings piled up on wagons, driving their cattle ; 
men going in fortune -hunting, getting a lift occa- 
sionally, but footing it most of the way ; heavily 
laden wagons with provisions and supplies of all 
kinds for Fort George and other points in the 
interior ; but this will not be for much longer, for 
the Grand Trunk Pacific will soon be running trains 
into Fort George, and then the glory of the Cariboo 
road will have departed. 1 

From Soda Creek a steamer takes us up the 
Eraser to Fort George in two more days. The 
trip, which is thus accomplished by stage and 
steamer in four days, takes five or six weeks 
for the heavy freight trains, long caravans of 
wagons, each drawn by six, eight, or even up to 
sixteen strong horses. Frequently two or three 
wagons are hitched together ; this is generally the 
case when they are returning light. These empty 
trains returning are met all along the road. 

The high, narrow wagons, with their high hoops, 
covered over with canvas, present a strange appear- 
ance when seen for the first time, reminding one 
of pictures of wagon trains crossing the desert to 
California in the old days. They are much more 
picturesque than the wagons in South Africa. This 
method of travel must have continued in vogue 
for untold thousands of years with little change ; 
one can imagine the Israelites trekking out of Egypt 
with such freight trains to carry their belongings. 

One frequently sees women driving, for among 
the ranchers in the West the women are no merely 
ornamental adjuncts. 

1 This line was opened through to the coast in 1914. 



BEAR RIVER 117 

Leaving Ash croft, we climb up out of the 
Thompson Valley and follow at a considerable 
elevation the valley of the Bonaparte River, which 
is first seen at an immense distance below us. 

The sage-brush country is soon left behind ; as 
we get higher up first bunch -grass appears, and 
then we come into the region of the bull-pine, a 
most picturesque tree with rough orange-yellow bark 
and large tufts of needles. Then, still higher, we 
gel a variety of forest lives growing in places quite 
thick, fii\ black pinr known as jack-pine . spruce. 
and other varieties. 

We pass numerous ranches, and every few miles 
along the road is a " road -house " where travellers 

can gel meals and sleeping accommodation. These 
are designated by their distance from the starting- 
point, and as Lillooet. and not Ashcroft. was the 
Starting-point for the interior in the old days, after 
we pass Clinton and get on to the Cariboo road 
proper, the names of the road houses refer to their 
distance from Lillooet. which is eleven miles more 
than that from Ashcroft. Tims the famous 150 
Mile House is only 139 miles from Ashcroft. 

The road is very dusty ; the cylinders get over- 
heated and the cooling water boils . we have to 
slop frequently to change it and Id the engine cool 
down. The bearings also get very hot ; the 
chauffeur talks about dust in the lubricating oil. 
Under these circumstances progress is slow, and 
it is one o'clock when we come to sleepy little 
Clinton, only thirty -live miles from Ashcroft. The 
little village lies in a wide, flat valley, surrounded 
by beautiful green fields, an idyllic scene ; it might 
be some quiet little Old Country village. Next to 



118 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

us at lunch sits the new schoolma'am ; she is from 
the Old Country and has only been out here a 
fortnight ; it is all new and strange to her, and 
intensely interesting. 

Not far from the Fifty -three Mile House is the 
Chasm, an immense canon with no stream running 
through it and ending abruptly, a curious geological 
freak. The road passes close to its side, and at one 
point the auto is stopped for the passengers to 
approach the brink and gaze down into the vast 
gorge. Close by is a tiny little frame building with 
a board over the door bearing the legend " Chasm 
School." One wonders where the children come 
from to attend school in such a place. But there are 
ranches even here, and in Canada children think 
nothing of a four- or five -mile w T alk to school. 

A telephone line extends all along the road, so 
that meals and sleeping accommodation can be 
arranged for ahead, as soon as the driver knows 
which of the numerous road -houses he will be able 
to reach. And excellent meals are served too : lots 
of fresh vegetables — no more of the canned goods 
that we get in the cities, but the real thing straight 
from the garden. Some of the road -houses are very 
picturesque, reminding one of old English farm- 
houses. Nearly all of them have a luxuriant growth 
of hops creeping all over the front, which materially 
adds to the picturesque effect, and some of them 
have charming little flower-gardens with a brilliant 
display of colour. 

Most of the country traversed is splendid agri- 
cultural land, though possibly a bit dry in places, 
but nothing is grown now except just sufficient to 
supply the occupants and the travellers along the 



BEAR RIVER 119 

road with food for themselves and their horses. 
With the enormous distance to the nearest market 
nothing can be shipped. But a railway is soon 
to be built up the Fraser Valley to Fort George, 
and then this rich country will be within reach of 
transportation. 

A great deal of work has been done on the road 
recently, and it is now quite a fair road to go over 
with an auto. The higher ground, 2,000 to 2.500 
feet above sea-level, is mostly open grazing land, 
dotted with trees here and there. A number of 
lakes occur, one of them, Lac La Ilaclie, being 
skirled by the road for its whole length, some fifteen 
miles. At the side of the lake is the ranch known 
as the 11.") .Mile House, and here we spend the 
night : it is a quaint, old-fashioned house. Never 
will my companion forget the excellent supper they 
gave us; the Lac La Ilache Iroul will live in his 
memory till his dying day. And such a fresh, simple 
meal one enjoys more than all the epicurean leasts 
of the cities. 

* • * * 

Some time on the second day the 150 Mile House 
is reached. This is quite a village, with a road- 

house which is almost ;i hotel, a police -station, 
school, and several stores and residences. Here 
two roads branch off, that to the right going to 
Quesnelle Forks and the southern part of the 
Cariboo district, that to the left crossing the Fraser 
by a ferry and following the Chilcotin River up 
to Hanceville. On each of these roads there is also 
a stage service, but only once a week. 

We keep straight on, climbing up a steep hill 
away from the 150 Mile House, over more high 



120 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

ground, timbered with jack-pine, poplar, birch, and 
many other trees, till we descend into the beautiful 
valley of Deep Greek, in which are several pros- 
perous-looking ranches. As we get nearer the 
Fraser, however, the road rises up on to the higher 
ground to the right, and when we finally see the 
great valley of the Fraser open out before us the 
river lies at a depth of some fifteen hundred feet 
below us. The old road continues along the high 
ground alongside the valley towards Quesnelle, or 
Quesnel as it is now generally written, but we 
have to descend into the valley here at Soda Creek 
by a steep, zigzag road. 

In the valley of Deep Creek, and indeed over 
the greater portion of the road, a peculiar feature 
of the scenery h? been the number of forked pine- 
trees, the trunk being forked generally twenty or 
thirty feet from the ground, and the two limbs 
diverging at a slight angle and forming a twin tree. 
This peculiarity is also to be seen in fir-trees 
occasionally. 

At Soda Creek we get on board the sternwheel 
steamer B.X. : which name is the popular abbre- 
viation of the B.C. Express Company, which runs 
the stages and steamers, and make ourselves 
comfortable for the night. It is a distinct relief 
after two days' bumping over a dusty road to sit 
down in a comfortable little steamer. 

Starting in the small hours the following 
morning, the trip up the 150 miles to Fort George 
is made in two days, tying up during the night. 

As far as Quesnel the journey is uneventful, but 
beyond that two canons have to be passed through, 
which lends excitement to the trip. 







■ 





\ FOR I GE< >RGI ( a\' »N. 




HEADWATERS OF BEAR RIVER. 



BEAR RIVER 121 

Quesnel looks quite a cheerful little town, fronting 
on the river, with ils two large and attractive- 
Looking hotels. It all looks quite modern and new ; 
it is only when one gets away from the " town 
centre " that one comes across relics of the old 
days in the shape of substantial log cabins and 
houses. All the recent buildings are of sawn 
lumber, much smarter in appearance, hut not nearly 
so serviceable in winter, for here it goes to fifty 
below, and then you want a good thick wall to keep 
in the heat. A lumber-mill near the wharf gives 
an appearance of industry lo the scene. 

The Quesnelle River joins the Fraser jusl below 
the town. Jusl beyond it. on the bank of the Fraser, 
is a peculiar bright red cliff, This is due lo a 
seam ol lignite having burnt, and converted the 
overlying clay beds into hard brick, a phenomenon 
not uncommon in this country. 

A few miles above Quesnel two groups of earth 
pinnacles stand out on the left side ol' the river, 
about three hundred feet above the water, presenting 
in the distance the appearance Of ruined castles ; 
one might almost imagine that one was travelling 
on the Rhine instead of the Fraser. 

Then we come lo Cottonwood Carton, not a 
regular canon, but a series of gorges through which 
the water rushes and swirls in eddies, forming a 
ticklish piece to navigate. 

Photographs can give no idea of the appearance 
of these canons, the movement of the water is 
lacking ; one must pass through them oneself in 
order to realize the excitement of it, and to appre- 
ciate the masterly skill exercised in navigating the 
steamer. 



122 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

They say it is not the canons that are really 
the most difficult and dangerous, but some of the 
bars, particularly China Bar, which stretches almost 
the whole way across the river, leaving only a 
narrow passage deep enough for the steamer to 
pass. This boat draws only two feet of water, 
and none of the others much more, being wide 
and flat-bottomed, but it is quite a common occur- 
rence to go aground, and it is not always a very 
easy job to get off again, with a strong current 
forcing you against the bar. But the boats are 
commanded by men, generally half-breeds, who 
have been born and bred on the river, and 
understand all its ways. 

The great incident of the trip is the passage 
through Fort George Canon, some twenty miles 
below Fort George. A great deal of work has been 
done in blasting rocks so as to render it navigable, 
but it is still so risky that the steamers are not 
licensed to carry passengers through it, so we have 
to land and travel three-quarters of a mile on foot, 
catching a glimpse now and then from between 
the trees and rocks of the steamer struggling 
through. At about the worst point she has to make 
a sharp turn, almost a right angle, surrounded on 
all sides by ugly-looking rocks, sharp and jagged, 
some rising high out of the water, some submerged, 
their presence only indicated by the furious whirl- 
pools and eddies in the water. In the passage 
which the steamer has just entered the water is 
pouring down between the rocks as if it were 
coming over a weir ; there must be a sudden fall 
of at least two feet in the level of the water there. 
It seems incredible that a ship can get through 






BEAR RIVER 123 

there against the stream at all. But she is skil- 
fully manipulated, and gets through without a hitch, 
and we get on board once more. 

Presently there is a rush to the port side of the 
deck. What appears to be a big black dog is running 
along the shore, and everybody is watching him. 
He has been drinking in the river, and has been 
scored by the approach of the steamer. Suddenly 
two shots ring out, but without effect, and the young 
bear, for such it is. disappears into the bush. 

At length Fort George is reached. There are 
two Fori Georges, South and Central, and never was 
there greater rivalry between two town sites. This 
is South where we are ; Central is three miles 
farther up, on the right bank of the Xechaco. which 
joins the Fraser here. 

Each town consists of a number of frame houses 
and a vast amount of real estate, and each claims 
to be the city of the future I A great deal depends 
Oil the location of the railway -Station ; central is 
in the better position with regard to the railway. 
but South has much the best water-front. It will 
probably not be very loni; before the two are united, 
lor 1 oil George is so situated geographically that 
it cannot help becoming the distributing centre for 
that vast area comprised under the designation of 
Central British Columbia, and. surrounded as it 
is by extensive valleys, it will, before many 
decades are over, be quite a metropolis, with 
railways radiating in all directions. 

On arriving we learned that our surveyors had 
already left. but. instead of going in across country 
from here, they had gone to Barkerville. and were 



124 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

now engaged in building boats on Lesser Bear Lake, 
at the head of Bear River, in which to make the 
trip down to the property in question. So we 
decided to retrace our steps, so to speak— that is, 
to return on the good ship B.X. through Fort 
George and Cottonwood cailons as far as Quesnel, 
from which point we could take the stage over 
the fifty miles up to Barkerville in time to catch 
up with the survey party before they finished 
building the boats. 

We had to stop a night in the comfortable 
Occidental Hotel in Quesnel. Among the guests 
were a very young couple, a mere boy and girl, 
who had eloped, we were told, from somewhere in 
Dakota or Nebraska, and had come up to this 
remote place in the hope of escaping pursuit. Like 
most such couples, they had no means, and the 
kindly hotel proprietor had given the young fellow 
some work in some alterations he was having done. 
Such boy-and-giii elopements are frequent in the 
States, but they must often have a pretty hard 
time after the original supply of cash runs out. 

The stage left for Barkerville in the afternoon. 
We had one fellow-passenger, a young Scotsman 
who came armed with a bottle, not yet having 
recovered from the " spree " upon which he had 
been for the last couple of days. He had quit a 
job in Quesnel simply because he had a roaming 
fit, and was going to Barkerville for no apparent 
reason, having decided to board the stage only at 
the very last moment. 

He regaled us with songs and anecdotes of 
various escapades which betrayed his near rela- 
tionship with the family of Munchausen. At 



BEAR RIVER 125 

intervals he slept, much to our relief, although 
sometimes, on going round sharp turns, he very 
nearly fell out of the stage. 

The drive is interesting ; twenty miles out we 
come lo the settlement of Cottonwood, a little old- 
world village, where we stop for the night. The 
road-house is old-iashioned and comfortable. The 
proprietors, Iwo brothers, are full of tales of the 
old times, handed down lo them from their parents, 
for they have been born and bred here. They 
have many samples of gold-dust and some tidy 
nuggets to show us. 

In the morning we continue our journey. Sandy 
has a very sore head, and needs many pulls at 
the bottle lo keep up his spirits ; he feels very 
sorry for himself, and is pessimistic about every- 
thing in general all the morning, but later on he 
recovers his spirits. 

At one point we approach the edge of a deep 
chasm, and far below we see a little river. It 
is Lightning Creek, famous in the old Cariboo days. 
Later on we descend into the valley and pass 
through Van Winkle, or Stanley as it is now some- 
times called. It might be a sleepy little English 
village, except that all the houses are built of wood. 
There is a gold-mine here which has been working 
quite recently. After whom the village was named 
I tailed to discover ; one cannot help connecting 
it with the famous Rip of that ilk. 

But the most picturesque and interesting part 
oi the trip is in the last twenty miles ; after leaving 
Van Winkle the road rises rapidly, and we leave 
the valley of Lightning Creek and go over the 
divide through what has been well named the 



126 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

Devil's Pass., The scenery is superb ; the road 
skirts along an almost vertical cliff ; it makes one 
dizzy to look at the foaming river away below, 
and on negotiating some of the sharp bends one's 
heart is usually in the vicinity of one's mouth as the 
stage dashes round with the outer wheels high in 
the air. For Sandy has been sitting on the front 
seat with the driver, who has been taking an occa- 
sional look at the bottle for sociability's sake, and 
is now showing what he can do in the way of 
handling his team. He certainly can handle it 
magnificently, in spite of his recklessness. 

It is with a distinct feeling of relief that we come 
out into the open valley and are on comparatively 
level ground once more. Then we come to Jack 
of Clubs Lake, which we skirt for a few miles, 
and then across a fertile piece of meadow-land 
to Barkerville, which we enter at a gallop in great 

form. 

* * * $ $ 

Barkerville is at a height of 4,500 feet above the 
sea, and the climate is delightful in summer, though 
somewhat severe in winter. The one street which 
forms the town has a quaint, old-fashioned appear- 
ance. The valley above is narrow, and the tailings 
from the mining operations higher up have run 
down right through the town, the creek being 
almost at the back doors of the houses on one side. 
The accumulation of material has been so great 
that the houses have had to be raised periodically, 
until now some of them are said to be thirty feet 
above their original level. The result, as may be 
imagined, is an irregular, jumbled up mass of 
tumbledown buildings. 



BEAR RIVER 127 

The traveller is regaled with tales of the old 
days, when fortunes were made in a single day, 
and lost as quickly, when a cup of coffee cost two 
bits (which, being translated, is twenty -five cents) 
and a pie two dollars and a half. A piano was 
brought in before the Cariboo road was made ; it 
had to be taken to pieces and packed on men's 
backs, but a lady desired it and it came— such was 
the luxury of those days ! History does not relate 
what sort of sounds came out of it after its long 
transport in sections. Some pictures are preserved 
in the hotel which also dale from that time, and 
were packed in on men's backs. They are con- 
sidered great works of art, but what they represent, 
and by whom they were painted, 1 have forgotten. 

Nuggets and gold-dust are of course produced 
to be duly admired. The Latter was the currency 
in the old days here as in all gold camps ; a man 
going into a store to buy anything produced his 
pouch of dust, and the merchant weighed out the 
requisite amount on his scales, throwing back the 
pouch across the counter. Woe lo the storekeeper 
who should be convicted of having falsified his 
scales ! 

It seems strange to think that this is the second 
decade ot the twentieth century ; one would think 
rather that we had been translated back into the 
middle of the nineteenth. Barkerville seems to have 
no connection with the new order of things ; it is 
quite an anomaly to see public notices bearing the 
letters G.R. — surely that must refer to George IV ! 
And there are even children here ; it is strange 
lo see real live twentieth -century children in 18(H), 
for surely it can never be more than 1860 hi 
Barkerville ! 



128 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

When one is familiar with the Old World, with 
European and Egyptian antiquities, it seems 
ludicrous to speak of last century as long ago : why, 
we lived a good many years in it ourselves, it 
is only a matter of yesterday. But the very fact 
that it is so recent makes one appreciate its antiquity 
all the more. To think that men now living 
actually took part in that gold rush long ago. 
tramped up those 450 miles into an unknown land 
from the little town of New Westminster ; to think 
that half a century ago this place was like what 
the Klondike has been within recent years, and 
that it has simply been asleep ever since, while 
the outside world has been going ahead ; that 
Vancouver has come into existence and grown to 
be a great city while Barkerville has slept ! One 
cannot help thinking that one has slipped back into 
the past, and that the twentieth century, with its 
automobiles and aeroplanes, is only a dream. 

Fancy any one choosing Barkerville to be born 
in ! I know a lady in Vancouver, not by any means 
elderly, who made this extraordinary choice. She 
used to come down to school in New Westminster, 
450 miles in the stage, travelling day after day 
over that famous old road, through the Eraser River 
Canon and all— for there was no C.P.R. in those 
days. Just think of a young girl undertaking such 
a journey each time she went home for the holidays. 

But a Canadian girl is able to look after herself, 

and if she has been brought up in the country she 

can walk or ride or climb with the best, and be 

none the less womanly and charming for it either. 

* * * * * 

At the hotel one of our survey party turns up, 











wttufgy 



->, -^ ' 



r\ 




Hl'ILDIM. BO W-. 



Tu face p. iz8. 



BEAR RIVER 129 

and we go out with him to Bear Lake next morn- 
ing, tramping the twenty miles, while our dunnage 
is carried by a couple of horses. 

Bear Lake is a delightful spot, considerably lower 
than Barkerville, and there are a couple of ranches 
alongside Bear River where it issues from the lake. 
When there is a railway to Barkerville this part 
will soon be well settled. The view from the lake 
looking down the river is one of passing beauty. 
The country round the lake is thickly timbered 
with fir, spruce, balsam, jack-pine, and on the lower 
ground alongside the river the dark green of the 
conifers is relieved by masses of elegant birches 
and poplars. Some of these have already turned 
colour, for September is well advanced, and these 
form patches of brilliant golden yellow, which, with 
the dark i^wvn all round, the blue sky above, and 

the whole reflected in the smooth surface of the 
water beneath, completes a picture of exquisite 

delicacy. 

Our survey parly consists of four Dan, the boss. 

Waller, Tom. and Happy, with Homer, the French- 
Canadian COOk, and lour natives who are to be 
the axemen, not to mention Happy s little retriever 
pup, 'Footsie. The natives are now building three 
flat-bottomed boats of Whip-sawn lumber under the 
direction of the white men. It is a couple of days 
before the boats are ready, and during this interval 
we have a look round the place and collect resin 
from the balsams and firs to caulk the boats with. 
A large parly of surveyors went down the river 
a week before ; while we are there their chief, 
Mr. Pearson, and another man arrive on foot from 
the rapids forty miles below. One of their boats 

9 



130 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

has capsized in the rapids and a man been drowned. 
He was carried down by the current into a deep 
pool and his body has not been seen. Such is the 
risk of travelling in this way, and it doesn't exactly 
tend to encourage us to start out ! 

However, the boats are completed in due course, 
and when we feel how well they ride in the stream, 
and how masterfully not only the natives but the 
surveyors also handle them, our misgivings begin 
to disappear, and we start off gaily down the river. 
All is plain sailing on the first day, and we camp 
that night thirty miles down, after an enjoyable 
day. On the morning of the second day we reach 
the first rapids, and here our boatmen's skill shows 
itself. These Indians from Fort George have been 
born and bred on these rivers, and know all there 
is to be known about handling a boat or canoe. 
In the calm places the paddles are used, but where- 
ever the water is shallow and rapid the poles are 
in requisition, and it is wonderful how they will 
suddenly bring the boat to a standstill and hold it 
in the midst of rushing water, the captain at the 
stern and the mate in the bow. The passenger in 
the middle of the boat also gives what help he can 
with his pole. Then, w T hen the passage has been 
decided upon the boat is perhaps poled back against 
the stream for some distance, and diverted into the 
required channel. 

Now and then they get out and wade, guiding the 
boat in the way it should go in shallow places among 
the rocks ; it is a masterful piece of work, this 
handling of a fragile boat among the turbulent 
waters. At one place the " passengers " are landed 
on a long island, and walk down half a mile while 



BEAR RIVER 131 

the boats are skilfully guided down the shallow, 
rock-strewn channel. 

At the rapids the water is boiling over the rocks ; 
it needs a skilled boatman to see the channel and 
follow it. If the boat were to swing round and dash 
its side against a rock it would be all up with it in 
a moment. If she commences to swing round, and 
cannot be held by the poles, there is only one thing 
to do, and that is to jump out and hold her. There 
is no time for thought ; action must be instinctive 
or it will be too late. That is where a novice is so 
utterly useless ; while he wastes a second in think- 
ing what to do, the damage is done and the boat is 
lost. That is undoubtedly what happened in the 1 
case of Mr. Pearson's party ; most of them were 
men entirely unacquainted with rivercraft, and it 
is not surprising that they had several mishaps, 
fortunately without loss of life except in that 
one case. 

But, thanks to our expert boatmen, we get through 
with no mishap, and presently we find ourselves in 
a deep, dark canon where the water is black and 
deep. And just below the other party is encamped, 
for in this pool lies that poor fellow "s body. We 
have passed the dreaded place, and camp that night 
with lighter hearts, although we cant help think- 
ing sometimes of the man who started down the 
river a few days ago so gaily, and whose earthly 
remains now lie at the bottom of that black pool., 

Next day travelling is easier, the river is getting 
bigger, but there arc still many shallow bars to 
cross, and some ticklish places among the boulders. 
On rounding a bend a fine cow moose is seen stand- 
ing in the river, peacefully drinking, a beautiful 



132 THE CALL OR THE WEST 

sight. Our paddles are stopped, and as the wind 
is in the opposite direction, we are able to approach 
within seventy yards of her before she is aware 
of our presence. Then a rifle shot rings out, and 
the magnificent beast staggers towards the shore, 
but falls before she can reach it. That majestic 
denizen of the forest, roaming wild and free 
throughout the land, rejoicing in stupendous strength 
and superb beauty, filled with the vigour and the 
joy of life, doing harm to none, is now nothing but 
a carcass, merely so much meat — for, as it is a cow, 
the slayer has not even the satisfaction of taking 
home a pair of antlers as a trophy. It is a pitiful 
scene ; even the man who did the deed is smitten 
with remorse at the sight of that poor dead carcass, 
the heart scarcely stopped ! Why is it that man 
must bring death wherever he goes? It is surely 
not a thing for the lord of creation to be proud of. 
The work of skinning and cutting up the meat 
does hot take long ; the natives are experts at it and 
thoroughly enjoy the job. All the rest of the day 
they are thinking of the savoury stew they will have 
for supper, and for many days ahead. 

* * * * * 

That same afternoon we reach our destination, 
having covered the eighty miles from Bear Lake 
in three days, and we choose a good level spot close 
to the river bank, on a flat heavily timbered with 
poplar, clear away the underbrush and pitch our 
tents. We have two tents, one for the four surveyors 
and a smaller one for my companion and myself,, 
besides the cook-tent which Homer occupies together 
with his sheet-iron cook-stove and all the provisions. 
The natives have a tent, but have not yet pitched 



BEAR RIVER 133 

it. There are no hemlocks to be seen in the 
country, with the branches of which to make our 
beds, so we do the best we can with spruce, and 
lay out a fairly soft bed on which to put our 
blankets. 

The headman of the natives has been getting a 
bit fresh for some time, and there is a dispute 
between Dan and him over some matter of disci- 
pline. After supper the four natives get into one of 
the boats, in which their blankets happen to have 
been placed, and go off to shoot a beaver. The 
evening passes and they do not return, and the fact 
is borne in upon ns that they have gone for good. 
They can get down the river to the Fraser, and 
thence to Fort George, some 150 miles, in three or 
four days, and having a gun they can always get 
food. Their desertion has serious consequences for 
us ; we have only two boats now, but the most 
serious thing is that the surveyors will have to do 
their own axe work, and the survey, instead of 
being completed in three weeks, will more likely 
take six, and it is already close on the end of 
September. 

We stay ten days in this camp, for there is much 
country to be covered, and the surveyors work hard. 
It is easy country to travel through, timbered with 
poplar on the river flats, sometimes a great cotton- 
wood with its rich grey bark ; on the slopes skirt- 
ing the river it is nearly all spruce. This is hard to 
get through, for the low branches bend down and 
form an almost impenetrable network. Then on 
the benches, a hundred feet or more above the level 
of the river, we have mostly jack-pine spaced at 



134 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

such intervals that travelling is as easy as in the 
open. As the hills are reached we get larger timber, 
but none very large, black pine, fir, cedar, the latter 
really being an arbor vitse, more akin to cypress 
than cedar, but known universally as cedar in the 
West. 

Sometimes on the river flats we get into a willow 
patch ; then it is a case of making our way through 
as best we can ; it takes longer to cut a hundred 
yards of survey line through this than half a mile 
through the timber. 

It is easy to lose one's way if one goes out of sight 
and out of hearing of the river. To blaze a trail 
with an axe is a laborious process if one has many 
miles to go. On a bright day one can always steer 
by the sun, but when it is cloudy a compass is 
absolutely essential. At night the stars can seldom 
be seen in the timber, and to lose one's way after 
dark is a serious matter ; if any one of the party 
fails to reach camp before it is dark, a rifle is fired 
at intervals to guide him. 

Now and then a patch of meadow is unexpectedly 
entered ; it is generally more or less swampy, and 
sometimes a little lake is suddenly encountered. 
Most of these lakes, and indeed many of the swamps, 
are artificial. No human hands have brought 
them into being, but they are due to the tireless 
industry of skilful engineers all the same. At the 
point where the stream flows out of one of these 
lakes one finds a beautifully constructed dam, made 
of logs and sticks of all sizes, covered with brush 
and plastered with mud. Some of these dams are 
six or seven feet high and several hundred feet in 
length, of perfect workmanship. They are, of 



BEAR RIVER 135 

course, built by those marvellous creatures the 
beavers. 

And the trees that those little animals fell it is 
wonderful to see. On some of the poplar flats the 
ground is strewn with felled trees, sixty to ninety 
feet in length, some of them eighteen inches through 
at the butt ; I have seen a tree two feet six in 
diameter in process of being cut through. After 
being felled the smaller portion of the trunk is 
cut up into sections, three or four feet long, the 
larger branches being similarly treated, and these 
logs are taken to the river and floated down to 
the place where they are required. One could 
hardly credit it unless one had the ocular evidence. 

The beaver never work by day, it is always at 
dead of night. Homer used frequently to hear them 
working behind the cook-tent during the small hours 
of the morning. 

One naturally inquires, What is the object of all 
this industry? Why should they want to cut down 
trees and build dams at all? 

It is to maintain the height of the water in their 
" houses." The entrance lo the house is always 
under water, but as they are air-breathing animals 
the living-rooms have to be above water, so that 
it is necessary to keep the level of the water 
constant. This is obviously impossible in a creek 
whose height varies with the season and with the 
rainfall, hence the dams and artificial lakes. It 
is a wonderful chapter in the book of Nature. 

There arc lots of musk rats in these lakes too. 
They may frequently be seen swimming about, 
always busy over something or other. They bear 
too strong a family resemblance to the ordinary 



136 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

house rat to be very pleasing to look at, but their 
fur is much prized ; both they and the beaver are 
trapped for their fur. 

There is any amount of game in the forest, tracks 
are seen everywhere, especially where there is a 
sand beach on the edge of the river. Deer, cariboo, 
moose, and bear tracks in profusion, but they keep 
well out of our way. Only on one occasion a mag- 
nificent bull moose crosses the river a hundred 
and fifty yards from where we are and disappears 
among the brush. It is wonderful how they can 
get through the thick under-brush with their great 
antlers, but they seem to have no difficulty at all. 
$ $ $ $ $ 

The surveyors work hard to get the job through, 
and, having finished the examination of the locality, 1 
my friend and I give them a hand for the last few 
days. Sometimes we have to cross the river, which 
is no joke ; the water is icy cold and the current 
is very strong, and even at the shallowest places 
there is generally a channel where one has to wade 
up to one's waist. The round stones are slippery, 
and even with the aid of a stout pole it is no easy 
matter to retain one's foothold. 

Sunday is a day of rest in camp — that is, more or 
less rest, for the weekly washing is done during 
the morning. A shave is also indulged in by those 
who wish to feel really respectable during the 
coming week, and one takes the nearest approach 
to a bath that is possible in the icy water of the 
river. But the afternoon is generally spent reading 
and slacking generally. And the rest is well earned. 

The preparation of fuel for the camp is no small 
1 A very promising coal property. 



BEAR RIVER 137 

item ; every few days a tree is felled, preferably 
a fir, spruce, or balsam, on account of the resin they 
contain, and logs are sawn off it as required. A 
fire is built in front of each tent as it is cold in 
the evenings. Two upright stakes support three 
or four large logs piled one on the other, four or 
five feet long. The stakes are of green timber so 
as not to burn away too quickly. This form of fire 
throws the heat out into the tent, giving a 
very cheerful warmth. 

In front of the cook tent there is a " fly " under 
which a table is rigged up for having our meals 
on. Both table and seats are made out of boards 
which form the false bottoms in the boats. 

Homer is an excellent cook and we fare sump- 
tuously ; you should see the stacks of hot cakes 
disappear at breakfast ! He makes real yeast bread 
in his little oven, which is a great improvement 
on the baking-powder bread used in camps of a 
less elaborate nature. 

We have to shift camp twice before the whole area 
is covered, the last camp being in a poor place 
where the ground is all swampy and covered with 
moss, but it is frozen now, for October is drawing 
to a close and still the work is not finished. Each 
morning we have to thaw out our boots before we can 
get them on our feet, for they freeze as stiff as iron. 

While we are in our second camp Mr. Pearson 
and his party pass down the river. They have 
been surveying pre-emptions up above, and are now 
going to do some farther down, in the neighbour- 
hood of Greater Bear Lake. 

* * * * * 

One morning I wake up about four o'clock, a 



138 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

brilliant light shining in at the open door of the 
tent, which faces due east, and in the clear blue 
sky I see the full moon a little way above the 
horizon, shining straight into the tent. No, it can't 
be the moon, it is only about a third of the size 
of that orb. What, then, can it be— a clear silver 
white disc, the size of a teacup, shining with such 
a glorious radiance? 

It can be no other than a planet, no doubt 
Venus, appearing in the east, heralding the sunrise ; 
and indeed, observing it at intervals during the 
succeeding hours, it is seen gradually to diminish in 
size and brilliance as the dawn approaches until 
it has resumed its familiar aspect of a bright star. 
For several mornings in succession I am awakened 
by the radiance of this star in the east, and can 
now understand the significance of the planets to 
the ancients. Before, they had to me simply been 
bright stars. Now, this one at any rate is no longer 
a star, but a miniature moon, of exquisite beauty, 
a heavenly body different from any I have seen 
before or since. 

About five feet from this radiant Oirb is a star 
with a distinct tail, quite nine inches long ; it must 
be a comet, descending towards the eastern horizon 
at an angle of about forty -five degrees. It is a 
year since Halley's comet visited us, and I have not 
heard of any other such visitor due to arrive, but 
that star most certainly has a tail. I look again 
to make sure. Yes, it is there all right, there is no 
mistake about it. 

In the morning I speak of it, and the following 
night my friend wakes and sees it too. It is not 
until we have returned to civilization that we 



BEAR RIVER 139 

learn that Brooks' comet was visible in the east 
just at that time. 

***** 

Getting up one morning a strange sight meets our 
eyes. Instead of the usual clear water of the river 
we see white patches floating down ; the ice has 
begun to run. When we go down to wash there is 
ice extending for six feet from the shore. It is 
time we were getting out of this with our boats, or 
the river may freeze on us„ which would not be 
a joke. 

A cold snap has come on ; the thermometer 
registers somewhere in the neighbourhood of zero 
each morning for some days ; it is unusually early 
for such a cold snap in this part of the country. 

The surveying is continued under difficulties ; it 
is no joke to work with a transit in zero weather ; 
the lubricating oil freezes so that the instrument 
works stiffly ; one dares not touch the cold metal 
with bare fingers or they would be severely: burnt 
by the contact, and wearing thick gloves for such 
work is not conducive to ease of manipulation. 

The temperature goes away below zero ; the little 
thermometer in my aneroid only shows to eight 
below, so when that point is passed we cannot 
tell what the temperature is. We sleep with all 
our clothes on, and pil/e up the fires at night in 
front of our tents. The ice on the river is getting 
thicker ; it extends for twenty feet out from each 
side now, and one can walk along on its surface 
close to the shore with safety. Travelling along the 
river bank is much facilitated by this. 

The days are bright and sunny, and after ten 
o'clock it is delightfully warm in the sun, but the 



140 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

clear sky every night adds to the ice on the river, 
and we pray for clouds, for snow, that the river 
may not completely freeze up, and at last one morn- 
ing we wake with a pleasant warm feeling ; the 
ground is white, snow is falling fast, we are saved ! 
Tootsie has never seen snow before, and is wild 
with delight, capering about and throwing the snow 
up with her snout. 

It is not so pleasant travelling in the snow, but 
the sky is overcast and remains so for some days, 
during which the mercury creeps back away above 
zero in the early morning, and well above freezing 
point during most of the day, so that the ice on 
the river rapidly decreases, and soon the water is 
clear again. 

But the work is not finished yet, and the dull 
weather comes to an end. Once more it is bright 
and clear, and the ice forms again. Two more 
days see the work through, and now for a start 
before the ice becomes too bad ! 

The tents are struck, everything is packed up and 
the boats loaded. It is ten o'clock before we get 
off, and travelling is by no means easy. The water 
is low, and there is a coating of ice over all the 
rocks in the stream. The poles are immersed to 
their full length in the effort to get a good purchase, 
and come out dripping with water, which in a few 
seconds forms a coating of ice. After this has 
been repeated a number of times the pole becomes 
of unwieldy size, having a coating of ice half an 
inch thick all round. Our gloves get wet and freeze 
on the outside, so that we can get no grip at all 
on the poles, and we have to try and chip the ice 







THE DININCi-KOOM. 



To face p. 140. 



BEAR RIVER 141 

off them every few minutes by knocking them on 
the side of the boat. The poles slip on the ice which 
covers all the rocks both above and below the 
surface of the water, and it is very difficult to guide 
the boats. 

Time after time the boat becomes jammed among 
the rocks, and the longer it stays the more ice forms 
around it, cementing it to the rocks. Drift ice, 
coming down the river, collects wherever there is 
an obstacle and adds to the mass. ,We dare not 
get out and wade, or our feet would be frozen 
before we could get to the shore and make a fire, 
so we have to make frantic efforts with pole and 
paddle. At one place the boat I was in was stuck 
for over an hour. It was finally released by putting 
the cook -stove out into the stream, and a man 
standing on that managed to work the stern of 
the boat backwards and forwards until it came 
free. That was the last we saw of the cook- 
stove. 

We frequently get jammed in large sheets of 
drift ice ; at a narrow place the drift ice has com- 
pletely closed the river for a length of some sixty 
yards. It is not more than fifteen yards across 
between the solid ice on each side, and the space 
is completely filled with a mass of soft, spongy 
ice, through which we have to cut our way with 
axes. Hard, solid ice would have been easy to cut 
through, but this stuff closes in on us almost as 
fast as we open a passage, and near the shore 
where the ice is hard it is too shallow to go. 

Under such circumstances travelling is not rapid, 
and that evening we make camp, all thoroughly 
tired out, just six miles from where we started. 



142 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

It is not an encouraging prospect for the 140- 
mile journey ahead of us ! 

* * * * * 

Next morning we start out, cold and miserable, 
and after an exhausting morning's work camp at 
midday half a mile farther down. A council of 
war is held, and it is decided to abandon the boats 
and strike across country for Fort George, which 
can only be about forty-eight miles away in a 
straight line, the river route being very circuitous. 

The surveying instruments have, of course, to 
be left behind, as well as everything which is not 
absolutely essential for us to take ; I have to leave 
my samples behind, but decide to take my cameras 
and other instruments, which make my pack a heavy 
one. 

The tents are all left, and each man takes one 
blanket ; I take a small blanket and the quilt out 
of my sleeping bag. We take enough food to last 
for six days at a pinch, as we count on reaching 
Fort George on the fourth day. Before leaving 
our last fixed camp Homer had baked a lot of 
bread for the journey, so we put rice, bacon, and 
bread into our packs. A little tea, a few prunes, 
and some cheese completes our supply. Of sugar 
and salt we have none, having run out of those 
commodities. Boiled rice without either salt or 
sugar is not very appetizing, but anything tastes 
good at twenty-four below zero ! Being a vege- 
tarian, I have not the variety that the others have 
in the bacon, but try to make up with cheese. 

All our goods are left in a cache, resting on a 
platform erected between two trees about ten feet 
from the ground. They will be safe enough there, 



BEAR RIVER 143 

and the surveyors will send for them as soon as 
there is enough snow to take dog-sleighs in. The 
boats are dragged up under the trees, turned over, 
and covered with brush, so as to protect them from 
the sun, otherwise they would crack when they 
dried out in the spring. 

There we camp for the night, and in the morning 
off we start on our long tramp. It is not a cheerful 
prospect, but it is an immense relief to feel that 
there is no more poling in the icy river, no more 
of that heartbreaking jam(ming among the rocks. 
The forest is very dense here ; travelling is 
greatly impeded by the innumerable windfalls ; 
climbing over, under, and between logs and stumps 
is not particularly easy at any time, but with a 
fifty-pound pack on your back it is distinctly 
difficult, especially when you are not at all used to 
packing. The pack has a way of catching some- 
where after you are through, and you have to 
extricate it somehow, often having to slip the pack- 
straps off your shoulders before you can get it clear. 
It is not so bad at first, but towards the afternoon 
the pack gets very, very heavy, and these continual 
hitches are exceedingly trying. 

We dare not stop to rest more than a minute or 

two at any time without lighting a fire, or wo 

would be liable to get our faces or hands or feet 

frozen. Even while walking Dan got one of his 

big toes frozen ; fortunately he suspected it from 

the lack of sensation, and on removing his boot, 

' found the toe quite white and hard. A vigorous 

! application of snow for half an hour brought the 

| circulation back ; it was taken in time, but how 

| he must have suffered ! The toe swelled up so that 



144 THE CALL' OF THE WEST 

he had to slit the boot, and turned purple. He 
limped all the rest of the way, in fact all the rest 
of that winter, as I afterwards heard, but his spirits 
never gave way ; he kept ahead with the compass, 
breaking the trail, singing merrily half the time. 

Walter had both ears frozen, first one and then, 
the other, but they were observed by others in time, 
and snow applied before they had become very bad. 
Another day Tom's nose went, but that was also 
taken in time. 

It is fortunate that there is a little snow on the 
ground, not only on account of its use in the case 
of frozen limbs, but it also serves as a guide, those 
behind only having to follow the footprints of those 
ahead ; otherwise it would have been much more 
difficult to avoid losing each other, for each man just 
goes on at his own pace, making the best progress 
he can, only coming together when a halt is made 
and a fire lit for a few minutes' rest. 

So the first day drags through, and it is an utterly 
weary and miserable party that camp that night 
near a little creek where there is running water 
under the ice. We have covered about twelve miles, 
and they have been twelve hard miles too ! A fire 
is soon made — a roaring blaze ten feet long and 
four feet wide ; log after log is piled on, and at 
last we feel warm once more. 

Then comes supper. That is a very simple 
function ; a pot of tea is made, some rice boiled 
and bacon fried ; we each hack a piece off a frozen 
loaf and hold it to the fire on a pointed stick until 
it thaws out. 

Then the blankets are spread out as close to 
the fire as we dare, and with a large supply of logs 






BEAR RIVER 145 

ready to pile on to the fire, we roll ourselves up 
in our blankets and endeavour to sleep. 

We doze off now and then, but wake up to feel 
either our feet or our heads or our backs cold. 
Sitting up so close to the fire that our knees almost 
burn, the frost forms on the blanket over our back. 
Every now and then some one gets up to put a 
few logs on the fire ; the blaze is kept going all 
through the night. 

* * * * * 

We are not sorry when the dawn comes and we 
get up for another day's tramp. Breakfast is the 
same as supper, our packs are made up and off 
we start. 

After a few miles we come to a survey line, a! 
clearing in the brush, about ten feet wide, but the 
trees are only cut down a couple of feet from the 
ground, so as to leave a clear line of sight, and the 
windfalls and underbrush are only removed to such 
an extent as to satisfy the same requirement ; in 
fact, the trees Which have been felled in order to 
clear the line of sight add to the already numerous 
windfalls. But it is better than making our way 
through the forest, as we can at least see where 
we are going, and the compass is no longer required, 
as all survey lines run either north and south or 
east and west. 

This ground was actually surveyed by this same 
party last year, so we know where we are now, 
and presently come out on to the trail that goes 
up Willow River. It is some distance from the 
river at this point, and it is not until we reach the 
ford, three miles lower down, that we come in 
sight of the river. Then it appears below us, a 

10 



146 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

smooth, white sheet, and we walk across on the 
solid ice. No doubt the Bear River presents a 
similar appearance now, so it is as well that we 
left the boats when we did. 

There is a trail all the way now, and a ranch 
seven miles ahead, which is our objective to-night. 
There may not be any one there, but we will at 
least be able to get into the cabin and sleep in 
comparative comfort. 

Travelling is very easy now that we have a trail 
to follow, but there are frequent windfalls blocking 
the way, and our packs are very heavy. There 
are footsteps in the snow — two men have passed 
ahead of us recently— and presently we come across 
the remains of a fire, the embers still hot. 

At last, just as it is getting dusk, we come to a 
clearance, and our hearts leap with joy. The ranch 
at last ! 

But we are not there yet ; it is a clearance 
belonging to the ranch, but there is no cabin on it, 
and we continue another mile along the trail. Then 
we come to a large open space, and there, sure 
enough, is the cabin. The trail skirts a rail fence, 
and when we come to the gate we tumble over 
each other in our haste to get through and on to the 
little log cabin. 

But when we get there a bitter disappointment 
awaits us ; the door is securely fastened, and there 
is no stove-pipe appearing above the roof, so 
that, even if we did break in, we couldn't light 
a fire. 

What a blow, after looking forward throughout 
the long, weary day to a warm place to sleep in at 
night ! Moreover, there is no dry wood anywhere 




SUNDAY l\ C VMl'. 







THE FIRST SNOW. 



To face p. 146. 



BEAR RIVER 147 

to be seen, and it is hard to keep a fire going 
on green poplar, which is the only wood in 
sight. 

However, Walter remembers that there is another 
cabin a mile farther on, and we decide to push on 
and try our luck there. For there must be a stove 
in one of the two. A little wind is beginning to 
spring up, and the cold is more bitter than ever. 

Wretched and weary, we reach the second house 
as darkness is falling ; it is much larger than the 
first, but there is no sign of a stove-pipe here either, 
and apparently no window. We break the door 
in, only to find that it is nothing but a barn, and 
that we cannot light a fire in it without risk of 
burning it down, besides which there is no outlet 
for the smoke. 

So we adjourn to the nearest thicket, and collect 
what wood we can and make a fire, a miserable, 
smoky fire of green poplar, and resign ourselves 
to the gloomy prospect of another night in the open 
with a wretched fire and a bitter wind. 

But Happy, resourceful and energetic, volunteers 
to go back to the other place and investigate. This 
is not the dwelling-house, so that must be, and in 
a dwelling-house there must be some means of 
making a fire, so he takes his axe and goes off. 
The rest of us make what we can of the fire and 
wait, too miserable even to talk. Walter goes off 
to help Happy ; he thinks activity of some kind is 
preferable to this waiting. 

Three-quarters of an hour pass, and then, oh 
joy ! Happy returns with the news that he has 
broken into the cabin, and there really is a stove 
in it, or rather a fireplace, the pipe having been 



148 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

pulled in and the hole in the roof covered over 
to prevent the snow from coming in. 

So we put on our packs once more and trudge 
back in the dark. The stove-pipe is soon fixed 
up again, and, thank God ! there is a good supply 
of dry poplar all cut up ready for use. Homer 
breaks a hole in the ice on the creek close by and 
gets a supply of water, and we feel once more 
that life is worth living after all. 

But our troubles are not yet over ; the stove-pipe 
refuses to draw, and the little cabin is soon full of 
the dense, pungent smoke, which only those who 
have burnt poplar or Cottonwood can fully appre- 
ciate. 

It chokes us, our eyes smart and water, our 
nostrils are like fire, and we gasp for breath. We 
have to open the door, and each one goes out to 
get some air. Only by lying on the floor and 
placing wet handkerchiefs over our faces can we 
make it endurable. 

There are no candles to be found, and we have 
brought none with us, so the only light we have 
is supplied by a rag dip consisting of a sauceoi 
filled with bacon grease in which a piece of cloth 
is immersed, the end hanging over the side of the 
saucer being lighted. The light is extremely feeble, 
and the smoke from it materially increases the 
pungency of the atmosphere. 

We eat our supper as best we can under these 
not very ideal circumstances, and then settle down 
for the night. The whole floor space and the 
lowest bunk are filled by our blankets ; the upper 
bunks are quite out of the question on account 
of the smoke. Now and then some one gets up 



BEAR RIVER 149 

and opens the door for a few minutes, and a little 
air comes in and a little smoke goes out, but it 
is hanging like a heavy pall down to within eighteen 
inches of the floor all the time. 

Even so it is preferable to facing another night 

in the open, especially with this wind, and in spite 

of everything we really do go to sleep and pass 

a very good night, awaking refreshed and happy. 

* * * * * 

In the morning there is a trace of snow in the 
air, and it is overcast, but still bitterly cold, and 
there is a gusty wind. Pinker's ranch is fifteen 
miles ahead, within seven miles of Fort George, 
and we intend to make for that to-day. The 
country is more open ; there has been a great 
forest fire through here some years ago, and much 
of the land is covered with a gaunt forest of 
blackened trunks, still standing, like the bristles 
of some vast brush. The ground between is strewn 
with the trees that have fallen, blackened and 
charred. A new growth has not yet sprung up, 
and the country has a most oppressively dreary 
aspect, nothing but blackened stubs and white snow. 

Now and then we come to a patch which the fire 
has not succeeded in destroying, and it is a relief 
to be among living trees again. 

Then we come to wide, flat meadows, which must 
be very fine in summer, but are now dreary sheets 
of white. The country is hilly, and we have some 
steep climbs, and must pause frequently to rest, 
supporting our packs on a stump or log, but not 
stopping long for fear of freezing. The cold begins 
to feel a little less intense than it has been for the 
last few days, but the mercury in my thermometer 



150 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

does not yet appear on the scale, so it must still 
be more than eight below. 

On descending a hill, well timbered here, a beau- 
tiful lake opens out before us ; we make a short 
cut across a corner of it, and then skirt along its 
shore for a mile ; it is Nine Mile Lake, and we 
know we are close to Pinker's. But before we 
get there we have one more hill to cross, and from 
its summit we see all round a dreary, desolate 
wilderness of white, made ten times more desolate 
by the charred stubs standing up, black and gaunt. 
Away down there in the distance, so very far away 
they look, are two little cabins in the midst of a 
clear, white space, surrounded by rail fences. And 
as we get nearer, to our unutterable joy we distin- 
guish smoke rising from one cabin, and know that 
Mr. Pinker is there ! By this time the air is thick 
with snow, the very fine, dry snow which alone 
can fall during zero weather. 

Then a little spurt and we drag ourselves in, 
one by one, to the welcome shelter and warmth 
of the cabin, dump our packs and sit down to 
rest. Mr. Pinker soon has a steaming stew prepared 
for us, and we sit down to the best meal we have 
ever had ; at least, it seems the best to us after our 
recent experiences. 

There is a lot to talk about ; we have not heard 
news of the outside world for six weeks, and much 
has happened during the interval. The two men 
whose footprints we saw passed here last night ; 
it was Mr. Pearson and one of his men ; the rest 
of his party are still out on Bear River, below where 
we were. It has been twenty-four below at Fort 
George for the past week or so, and it was probably 



BEAR RIVER 151 

several decrees colder where we were. The snow 
is falling fast now, and when I go outside it feels 
quite warm. I leave the thermometer out for a 
time, and find that it has already gone up to zero. 

What a joy it is to spend a warm night in an 
atmosphere which certainly might be better, but 
is at least free from the pungent smoke which 
we had to breathe last night! 

There is a wagon-road from here in to Fort 
George, and in the morning Mr. Pinker takes us 
in on his sleigh. It is cold. and Tom prefers to walk 
most of the way, but the rest of US are content to 
ride. When we reach the Fraser it is frozen so 
solidly that a team and sleigh could be taken over 
with no danger ; but Mr. Pinker is wise, and will 
not risk his team on it for another day or two, so 
we once more take up our packs and trudge across 
the three hundred yards of rough, broken up ice, 
and up the road into Fort George, where we 
fortunately find accommodation in the newly erected 
hotel which has been opened since we were here 
in September, the old hotel having been burnt down 
shortly before that. 

The surveyors are now home— at least, in what is 
their home for the time being but we have to make 
ourselves as comfortable as possible in the hotel. 
And if the matchboard building had been a marble 
palace we couldn't have been more glad to get 
there and dump down our packs for the last time ! 
No more weary tramping, with the ever-increasing 
weight of the packs on our shoulders, no more 
climbing over windfalls, and struggling through tight 
places between trees ! And what a luxury, a change 
of clothes and a bath ! Our clothes are mostly 



152 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

held together by safety pins, my overalls are torn 
in a dozen places, and we certainly look pretty 
ragged. But that is the usual thing here for any 
one coming in from the bush ; nobody takes any 
notice of that sort of thing. 

But once more disappointment awaits us ; in all 
this great hotel there is not a single bath ! Such 
luxuries are evidently considered quite superfluous. 
There is one in the barber's shop down " town," 
but the pipe is frozen, and it is out of commission. 
And we have not had our clothes off for a fortnight ! 
So we have to do the best we can with buckets of 
hot water in our rooms ; at any rate we can get an 
entire change of clothes. 

*j! . agw Sp Sp •!• 

Since the river has frozen all traffic has had to 
come by road. The road from here to Blackwater is 
only intended for winter use, the surface having 
been left quite rough, not even the stumps removed, 
so that it is not until there is a couple of feet of 
snow that it is possible to travel over it with any 
degree of comfort. At present there is too much 
snow for wheel traffic, but it is questionable whether 
there is enough for sleighing all the way. So the 
B.X. agent cannot tell us when there is likely to be 
a stage in, and we have to sit tight and wait. 

There are a large number of people going out 
to the outside world just now, but most of them do 
the trip to Ashcroft on foot ; the stage trip is 
expensive, and there are lots of road -houses where 
one can put up on the way, and often there is work 
to be done, so that a man can often " work his 
passage " along the road. 

While in Fort George we look up the rancher into 




I\ II IE ICE. 




SOUTH FORT GEORGE 



BEAR RIVER 153! 

whose cabin we broke, and make some slight re- 
muneration for the firewood and other things we 
used. He is very glad that we were able to 
get in. 

On Sunday morning there is a service in the 
Episcopal Church ; it is held on alternate Sundays 
in South and Central. This being the turn of South, 
I made myself as respectable as possible under 
the circumstances and entered the church at the 
appointed hour. There I found the clergyman 
putting wood on a little stove which kept the 
building at a decent temperature with some atten- 
tion. Presently a lady turned up and the service 
began, the lady and myself forming the whole con- 
gregation ! I was hoping that the hymns would be 
omitted, but such was not the case ; we went solemnly 
through with the three of them. The clergyman 
sang one tune, the lady another, and I made what 
noise I could at intervals ; it was almost like field 
service in South Africa ! Afterwards the clergy- 
man told me that they very often had a practically 
empty church, but sometimes they would get twenty 
or thirty people. 

The cold snap continues for three days after 
our arrival ; one morning the mercury registers 
thirty-one and a half below at the Hudson's Bay 
Post just outside the town. A peculiar phenomenon 
appears in the sky when the sun is low : a luminous 
form of peculiar shape appears on either side of 
the sun at a considerable distance from it. These 
are called " sun dogs " and we are told that they 
indicate a change of temperature ; it will either get 
much colder or the present cold snap will let up. 
Fortunately, the latter proves to be the case, and on 



154 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

our fourth day, in Fort George it actually thaws. 
Then for the first time I can open the window of 
my bedroom ; it had been frozen hard, and the 
atmosphere in the hotel after all that time with 
no windows open was something cruel. 

The increase in temperature brings a good heavy 
fall of snow ; the road is soon two feet deep, and 
we get the welcome message that a sleigh has left 
Quesnel. There are many more people applying 
for seats in the sleigh than can be accommodated, 
but we have return tickets from Ashcroft, and our 
seats are secured. 

The negotiations for the purchase of the Indian 
Reserve between South and Central by the Grand 
Trunk Pacific have been carried through success- 
fully, and the first instalment of the purchase money 
paid over. In consequence there is a great rejoicing 
among the Indians, and many of them are drunk. 
It is a criminal offence to supply liquor to an 
Indian, but it gets to them somehow all the same. 
The one policeman (who is distinguished by a brass 
badge, generally worn out of sight, on the waist- 
coat) has a pretty tough time ; he has arrested two 
Indians, but the skookum -house is small, and not 
at all strongly built, and if he arrests any more, he 
will be up against it for somewhere to put them, 
The four that deserted us on Bear River are among 
the most lively in their celebrations. 

After six monotonous days in Fort George we start 
out on the road. It is a dull morning, but not 
snowing. Fortunately, it is freezing, for wet snow 
is very heavy to travel over. 

There are two ladies in the company ; they prefer 



BEAR RIVER 155 

to sit on the box with the driver, a position which 
they retain all the way down to Ashcroft. 

For the first three miles we have to walk up a 
steep hill, but, once on the high ground, we go 
merrily along all day. Presently the sun comes out 
and it is much more cheerful. The black and dark 
green of the pines, the pure white of the snow, and 
the blue sky above, make a delightful combination , 
it is very different from the bare grey and black ol 
the burnt forest through which W€ came on our way 
in to Fort George. There are a number of ranches 
along the road ; at one of these we slop for lunch. 
We get the use of the stove to cook our food on, but 
we have to bring our own provisions, for there are 
no regular road -houses between Fort George and 
Quesnel ; the road is only used in winter when the 
river is out of commission. 

At night we slop at a ranch where a bunk-house 
has been erected. It consists ol' two large rooms 
with a door at each end, and a large stove in each 
room. Three tiers of bunks line the walls all round ; 
these are nearly all full, for there are other 
travellers besides our sleigh -load of twelve. For 
the two ladies a screen has to be improvised out 
of a blanket strung up across a corner, behind which 
they can undress in a certain amount of privacy, 
but with a very small amount of comfort. But 
they have as much room there as in a sleeper on 
the railway. 

The stoves are over-fired, and the atmosphere is 
fearful ; some of the people object to having a 
door open at all, but every now and then two of 
us open the doors and one stands in each doorway 
for a few minutes to allow a little air to blow 



156 THE CALL OF THE WEST ' i 

through and get rid of some of the foul atmo- 
sphere. The evening meal is prepared by the help 
of one of the stoves ; most of us have brought 
food that does not want any elaborate cooking, 
but we all make either tea, coffee, or cocoa. Then 
we wrap ourselves up in our blankets and retire 
early, for we have to rise at three in the morning. 

Getting up at three and making our breakfast 
does not prove to be such an awful ordeal as we had 
expected ; in fact, as long as it is dark in any case, 
it doesn't make much difference whether the clock 
points to three or seven. At four the sleigh starts, 
and we travel in the dark for nearly four hourjs. 
It sounds dismal, but it was in reality not nearly 
so bad, and we got quite used to it before we reached 
Ashcroft. 

On the afternoon of the second day we reach 
the valley of the Blackwater River and have a superb 
view of the valley a thousand feet below us and 
the little settlement in the bottom. 

At Blackwater we spend the night. Here the 
road from Fort George joins the old " Telegraph 
Trail," which follows the telegraph line up past 
Fort Fraser to Hazelton and away to the north. 
This telegraph line was erected in the early days 
with the object of crossing the Behring Straits and 
forming a connection between America and Europe 
overland. When the Atlantic Cable was success- 
fully established that was abandoned, but this line 
remains to serve the Yukon and Alaska. 

The road is better from here on, but there is a 
long, weary walk out of Blackwater, at least six 
miles, up out of the deep valley, for the ground is 
higher on the south side than on the north. It is 



BEAR RIVER 157 

daylight before we get into the sleigh. We make 
forty miles that day, and about seven o'clock in the 
evening we reach the bank of the Fraser oppo- 
site Quesnel. The river is not frozen over here now, 
but there is too much ice for the ferry to be worked, 
and we are transferred across in large native 
dug-outs lashed together in pairs, and skilfully 
manipulated by Indians. Once more we have com- 
fortable beds to sleep in, and don't have to cook 
our own meals. 

* * * 

Fortunately, a sleigh is leaving for the 150 Mild 
House next morning, so we have no delay in 
Quesnel. Some passengers from Barkerville are 
going down, and the sleigh is only a small one ; 
so a little trailer is fixed on behind upon which 
three men ride, in constant danger of being thrown 
off on going round curves, but greatly enjoying the 
sport. 

As far as Soda Creek we follow the Fraser, passing 
some large ranches on the way. Over this part of 
the road the teams are changed every twenty miles 
or so, and progress is rapid. The sixty miles to 
Soda Creek are covered by the early afternoon. 
.While the driver goes down the long hill to the 
settlement to change the teams we walk on, for 
the road continues on the high ground, and he has 
to come back up the hill to the same point again. 
Some of us have covered seven miles before we are 
overtaken. 

Late in the evening we reach the 150 Mile House. 
Here there is a stageload of passengers from 
Quesnel Forks and the southern Cariboo country 
waiting to go out, but the outgoing sleigh only 



158 THE CALL OE THE WEST 

holds fifteen and we are already fourteen, so only] 
one of them can come ; the rest have to abide in 
patience until another sleigh goes through. It is 
rather hard lines on them, but they naturally give 
the preference to through passengers from Fort 
George. 

The last portion of the trip is rather spoiled by 
the snow, which falls, not heavily but continuously, 
most of the day after leaving the 150. The second 
day is better, and we get a splendid view of the 
Chasm in its garment of white. Then at the Twenty 
Mile House, we come to the end of the snow, and 
make our final change of vehicles, this time pro- 
ceeding in wheeled stages, of which it requires two 
to accommodate our party of fifteen, and, after 
passing over some miles of slushy snow, we proceed 
on dry ground down into Ashcroft. 

***** 

Our six days' sleigh -ride, covering 325 miles, has 
been an interesting experience, but we are not sorry 
that it is over ; we are not altogether sorry at the 
prospect of not having to get up at 3 a.m. any 
more either ! The two ladies have stood the trip 
wonderfully ; no mere man dare grumble when they 
are there, fresh and bright all the time. It is 
quite warm now, and the sun is shining brightly ; 
there will probably be some mild weather now 
for a time after the cold snap, which was an 
unusually early one. Even in Fort George it is 
very unusual to get zero weather in November ; 
it is usually well on into January before the cold 
weather comes, but when it does come it is liable 
to go down to fifty below at times, though never 
for very long at a time. 



BEAR RIVER 159 

At Ash croft we disperse. Some go off on the 
eastbound train with a four days' railway journey 
still ahead of them ; but those of us going west 
have to wait overnight and catch the morning train, 
landing us home in Vancouver once more in the 
afternoon. And the one thing we look forward 
lo most of all is a good hot bath. 



CHARTER V 

PRINCE RUPERT AND THE QUEEN 
CHARLOTTE ISLANDS 

In the early summer of 1908 there was a camp 
on Kaien Island, near the mouth of the Skeena 
River, 550 miles north-west of Vancouver ; 
tents were all over the place for weeks : one 
would have thought there must be a gold-rush 
on. And so indeed there was, but the gold was 
not to be got out of the ground by hard toil, but by 
a much less laborious process. The terminal town- 
site of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was to 
be put on the market, and every one wanted to be 
in at the first and secure the best lots. 

Soon after the sale inside property went up to 
fancy prices, but the unexpected delay In the com- 
pletion of the railway led to a subsequent slump and 
a stagnation which has lasted for several years, 
and things cannot be expected to improve to any 
great extent until the railway is completed, at any 
rate from Winnipeg to the Pacific. 1 

There have been many disparaging statements 
made about Prince Rupert as a townsite, the most 
common remark being that it is all either rock or 
muskeg, and there is a certain amount of truth 
in this. But muskeg can be drained, and it is 

1 Completed in 1914. But the financial crisis of 1913, 
followed by the war, has delayed developments. 

160 







• iii^i ■ ^ fr * i^iltf 




1 




- ^zjJ^T^ 


, THE BIC FURS 
i" ■ j » ■■ 


Fb 


feH ^A T^^^paVA "^ V ' *■■ 


a ; 



FIRST W I Ml. PRINC I KM PERT, I'd". 







SECOND \\i\il, PRINCE RUPERT, lyio. 




RESIDENTIAL SECTION, PRINCE RUPEKT. I9IO. 



To face p. 160 



r 






PRINCE RUPERT 161 

being very effectually drained, and as for the rock, 
.we have it on very good authority that there are 
worse sites upon which to build than a rock ! 

It is a picturesque townsite ; some way back 
from the sea front there is a steep rise, a cliff in 
places, and the buildings on top of this have a 
very commanding aspect. Beyond this is com- 
paratively flat ground for nearly a mile, with a 
valley running through it, parallel to the coastline, 
and behind everything rises a steep, densely 
timbered hill, which, on account of its steepness, 
effectually puts a limit to the townsite in that 
direction. 

The lateral extent of the townsite is only about 
four miles. This sounds large enough according 
to European ideas, but out here the residential 
sections of a city spread over enormous areas, each 
house standing in its own lot, so that an area 
of four square miles does not mean a very large 
city. 

For further growth, Prince Rupert will have to 

spread out on to the north side of the harbour, 

where there is almost unlimited room for expansion. 
* * * • « 

One very satisfactory point about the town is 
that those responsible for deciding which should 
be adopted, among the various townsite plans 
submitted, have chosen one which takes advantage 
of the natural features of the ground, many of the 
avenues running in 1 graceful curves, forming a 
pleasing change from the appalling monotony of 
the usual rectangular block system. If the buildings 
are at all in keeping with the site, Prince Rupert 
will one day be a very beautiful city. 

11 



162 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

Even as it is, the ground is so irregular that in 
some places a great deal of filling in has to be 
done, and in others deep rock cuttings have to be 
made, at great expense to the ratepayers. It 
reminds one of Seattle, where hills are removed 
bodily if they are in the way ; but whereas there 
the streets are all in rectangular blocks, the cars 
going up some of the cross streets at a slope which 
looks like the roof of a house, here there is no 
attempt at any such excessive regularity, the cutting 
and filling in being only what is required to provide 
a reasonable amount of level ground for building 
and moderate gradients for the streets. 

A very wise by-law provides that all buildings 
shall be erected from the permanent level of the 
street, whatever its present level. The effect is 
rather peculiar at present ; one sees everywhere 
houses raised on trestles, as indeed many of the 
streets are also. One building, a Government office, 
must be fully twenty feet off the ground, being 
connected by a plank gangway with the street, 
which is cut in a hillside. 

Where the street has been cut down fifteen or 
twenty feet in the solid rock, it is rather a hard 
task for the owner of a lot to cut it down so 
as to build on the street level, but probably the 
by-law will be modified in such cases. 

The Prince Rupert Club, built before the passing 

of that by-law, is perched up on a rock some 

twenty feet above the road, the latter having been 

cut down to that extent since the Club was built. 

* * * * * 

When I first visited Prince Rupert in 1910 it 
was already quite a town, but surely one of the 



PRINCE RUPERT 163 

most peculiar towns ever seen. For every street 
consisted of a planked way some twelve feet wide, 
raised two or three feet from the ground, and at 
a distance on each side of that the main business 
streets had a plank sidewalk, the spaces in between 
the sidewalks and the roadway being just the 
natural surface of the ground, the smaller stumps 
still standing. In the middle of Second Avenue 
a steep, rocky eminence protruded, dividing the 
avenue inlo two separate portions. 

A few yards beyond the last houses on each of 
the avenues the process of blasting and removing 
stumps was going on in full swing, and the uneven 
places were being levelled over. Building was going 
on furiously ; on all sides the noise of carpenters' 
hammers was incessant. 

At the time of my second visit, in 1911, the most 
noticeable change was the number of drains which 
were being installed, regardless of expense, for it 
is an expensive job to cut drains in the solid rock. 
The city was being built to last, and they were 
setting about it in the right way. 

When I went there again in 1912 the central part 
of the town had indeed undergone a transforma- 
tion. The plank roadways had disappeared, and 
in their place were fine macadamized avenues ; 
Second Avenue stretched right through unbroken, 
a fine, wide, almost level street, the hill which before 
had divided it in two having been cut through, 
not only by the avenue, but by a cross street as 
well. 

In the residential section, on the high ground, 
stretching away to the east, the streets are still 
made of planks, some raised to a considerable height 



164 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

from the ground in places, and it will be a long 
time before these planked roadways can be replaced 
by something more solid, as most of the land is 
muskeg, and a great deal of material will be required 
to make a solid roadbed. 

You would not expect in such a place to find 
automobiles, or motor-cars as you call them over 
there. But there are some already, and, as more 
of the streets are macadamized, the number will 
increase. An auto-road is already under construc- 
tion round Kaien Island, a distance of some fifteen 
or twenty miles. 

In the course of time all the present wooden 
buildings in the business section will be replaced 
by more permanent structures of stone, brick, or 
concrete ; it will not be long before all the public 
buildings are so replaced. The G.T.P. is to build 
a hotel at a cost of two million dollars, so it will 
be " some hotel " when it is completed. 

***** 

Another complaint made against the selection of 
Prince Rupert as the site for the G.T.P. terminus 
is that there is no anchorage in the harbour, the 
bottom being all solid rock. It is a fine, land- 
locked harbour, but if that is true it is a very, 
serious drawback. The entrance to the harbour is 
narrow, and there is a strong current in it, but 
it is not nearly so bad in this respect as Vancouver. 

When this end of the railway was being built, 
there was very great difficulty in bridging the space 
between Kaien Island and the next little island that 
intervenes between it and the mainland, the current 
in the narrow channel being so strong as to wash 
away all attempted foundations. Many were the 



ff FlBP-^^^^ 


I 1 


Mm 









PRINCE RUPERT. 165 

croakers who prophesied that it would never be 
done, and who foresaw nothing but failure ahead 
for the railway and for the town site. Later on 
the same sort of croakers took to prophesying that 
the Panama Canal would never be opened. But 
the world goes round in spite of them. 

It was even said by many that Prince Rupert 
was only a blind, and that the Grand Trunk Pacific 
would ultimately make its terminus at Port Simpson, 
twenty miles farther north, and have another lown- 
site boom there after they had made all they could 
out of Prince Rupert. 

The townsite has serious disadvantages, that 
cannot be denied, but they are not insuperable ; 
they can be overcome by. those two useful qualities 
patience and perseverance, qualities which are being 
shown to a remarkable extent by the progressive 
little community. And il necessarily follows that 
the expense is great, and that taxation must be 
heavy for many years to come. 

But they are looking forward to the completion 
of the railway and to the opening of the Panama 
Canal to bring prosperity. There will be large 
steamers running to the Orient, and no doubt many 
running through the Canal to the Old Country, and 
Prince Rupert will undoubtedly be a thriving port 
before many years have passed. 1 

But will it, as its inhabitants claim, be a rival 
of Vancouver, or as some of its sanguine partisans 
assert, far surpass the southern city? 

No, such a dream seems quite unwarranted ; the 
supremacy of Vancouver can never be seriously 
questioned. It is the terminus of two trans - 
1 See footnote to p. 160. 



166 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

continental lines, and will before long be a shipping 
terminus of others, Canadian and American ; it 
is in an ideal position for sl, large city. But Prince 
Rupert must always be a city of one railway, unless 
another line parallels the G.T.P. all the way down 
the Skeena River from Hazelton, which is not likely. 
There will be other lines crossing Northern B.C., 
but they will probably locate on other termini, on 
Observatory Inlet or Portland Canal ; Prince 
Rupert will in all probability have only the G.T.P. 

There is a great and fertile hinterland behind 
the Coast Range, and Prince Rupert will no doubt 
have its share in the shipment of the products, 
but it is not likely to be the only port. The Pacific 
Great Eastern, connecting Fort George, or, as it 
has recently been rechristened, Prince George, 
with Vancouver, will divert part of the traffic south- 
wards ; another line is to be built, with Bella Coola 
as its port, and that will be the nearest port to 
Prince George, and consequently to the great Peace 
River country. 

So Prince Rupert, great as it may become, can 
never be looked upon as a rival to Vancouver. 

It is popularly believed that the climate of the 
northern city is abominable. It is said to rain 
there eight days a week during the rainy season, 
which, report has it, lasts from the 1st of January 
until the 31st of December. But that is a slight 
exaggeration. It cannot be denied that there is a 
lot of rain up there, as there is everywhere along 
the coast, but it is not so bad as all that ; I have 
seen some glorious weather there in the summer. 
* * * * * 

The passage up the coast from Vancouver is very 



PRINCE RUPERT 167 

beautiful, although it becomes monotonous after a 
time. Only in two places is the open sea seen at 
all, for three hours crossing Queen Charlotte Sound, 
and for about an hour in Milbank Sound ; all 
the rest of the thirty -six hours' voyage is in inland 
channels, between the various islands and the main- 
land. 

The Grand Trunk Pacific boats, Prince Rupert 
and Prince George, arc magnificent steamers, with 
fine, spacious saloons and staterooms, hot and cold 
water laid on in each stateroom, and everything 
as well appointed as in a modern ocean liner. The 
C.P.R. are also running some fine boats on the 
Alaska service, calling at Prince Rupert. There 
are a number of other boats calling there, but these 
are much the best. 

Leaving Vancouver at midnight, we pass out into 
the Strait of Georgia, forty miles wide here, up past 
Texada Island, and through Seymour Narrows, 
then up through Discovery Passage, which 
broadens out into Johnstone Straits, and at last, 
leaving the northern end of Vancouver Island on 
our left, we emerge 4 into Queen Charlotte Sound, 
where we first feel the swell of the Pacific. But 
we are soon again in sheltered waters, and with the 
exception of the short passage across Milbank 
Sound, we don't see the open Pacific any more. 

The coast is indented with long, narrow inlets, 
and innumerable islands extend all along from Puget 
Sound to Alaska. The intervening channels are 
from half a mile to three or four miles wide, and 
the water is like a lake. The country along the 
coast is all mountainous and rugged, steep slopes 
rising from the water's edge to heights of one or 



168 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

two thousand feet, upon the upper parts of which 
the snow lies until late in the spring. These slopes 
are densely timbered, except where a rugged blufl 
offers no foothold for even the most persevering 
of pines. 

Watercourses are seen, the streams tumbling down 
the hillside for two thousand feet ; sometimes a 
beautiful waterfall appears as we pass rapidly by. 

The scenery is magnificent and picturesque, but 
one cannot help feeling that it is a pity that so much 
beautiful country should be absolutely useless. For 
what can be done with it? It is impossible to grow 
anything except forest trees, and the rugged nature 
of the ground makes logging difficult and expensive, 
so that the greater part of the timber on this part 
of the coast has not yet been touched. No mineral 
has yet been discovered, and there is no grazing 
land. There remains the fishing industry, and that 
is, in fact, the one industry of the northern British 
Columbian coast. And that cannot be said to be 
making use of the land ! 

There are salmon canneries at various points, and 
there are Indian villages and settlements of some 
importance on the way up, but not very many on 
the channels that we pass through, and we stop 
at none on the Prince Rupert run. 

The mouth of the S keen a is a beautiful sight ; 
little brown, rocky islets, surmounted by dark green 
verdure, dotted about all over the place. Just up 
the river are numerous canneries, in which the 
coast Indians find employment. Before Prince 
Rupert appeared, Port Essington was the chief port 
of call in these parts. It is ten miles up the Skeena, 
and we don't see anything of it on the coast run 




nN Mil NORTH E RN COAST. 




J 



SKEENA RIVER STEAMERS, PRINCE RUPERT, 



'l'o face p. 1 68. 



PRINCE RUPERT 169 

now. The railway now passes along on the opposite 
side of the river, and it is completely side-tracked, 
being reached by a ferry. It is a very picturesque 
little settlement, overlooked by a great grey 
mountain. 

The first time I was at Prince Rupert was on the 
way up to Hazelton. There was no railway then, 
and I went up by one of the river steamers, an 
interesting and exciting trip. It took five days to 
make the 110 miles, tying up every night, and 
stopping frequently for supplies of cord wood during 
the day. We had to wait over a day at KiLselas, 
below the famous canon, as the water was too low 
to make the passage. And alter all we had to get 
our dunnage transferred across the portage, and 
get on to another steamer above the carton. But 
our own boat got through a day or two later, and 
I got down on her again. 

It was exciting work getting through the canon. 
The steamers had to be lined down as well as up. 
In one place we bumped the side and smashed some 
of the woodwork on the upper deck. The process 
of lining is very interesting. A parly of two or three 
men are landed on a bar or rock, and there make fast 
the line to an iron ring which is securely attached. 
Then the line is paid out by a winch on the deck as 
the steamer goes down through the canon. At 
one time there were no less than three such lines 
attached at different points. When any one line is 
no longer needed a signal is given by the whistle, and 
that line is cast off, the men in charge of it coming 
down through the canon in a little canoe, sweeping 
down past the bow of the steamer at a fearful rate, 



170 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

and coming up alongside in the sheltered water on 
the other side. It is a skilful feat, and looks both 
difficult and dangerous. 

The trip down was made in one day, all the way 
to Port Essington, two hours' run from Prince 
Rupert ; such is the difference between travelling 
.with and against the stream on the Skeena. 

But Skeena navigation is a thing of the past 
now ; the more prosaic but safer and quicker rail- 
way has replaced it, and Hazelton no longer needs to 
lay in provisions in the fall to last through the 
winter. 

* * * * * 

Both my subsequent visits to Prince Rupert were 
en route for the Queen Charlotte Islands, that fasci- 
nating group lying away out in the Pacific, the 
very " farthest West " of Canada, the last outpost 
of the British Empire. 

These islands form part of the province of British 
Columbia, and a very small part at that, but their 
isolated position gives them a dignity of their own, 
standing out in the ocean like the British Isles, oi 
Iceland, or Japan. And they have, like these, pro 
duced a daring, seafaring race ; for before the advenl 
of the white man, and for many years afterwards, 
the Haidas of the Queen Charlotte Islands were 
the terror of the whole coast, from Alaska to the 
Columbia River. They crossed over Hecate Straits, 
forty -five miles wide at the narrowest point, in their 
great war canoes, and travelled up and down the 
coast, ravaging and plundering the tribes of the 
mainland. 

These old war canoes, some of which can still be 
seen, drawn up under the trees, behind the beach 






PRINCE RUPERT 171 

at Skidegate, long disused, are indeed mighty boats. 
But to cross Hecate Straits in them, and to double 
Cape Flattery, and pass down the exposed coast 
of what is now the State of Washington, certainly 
required some daring. 

The Haidas are believed to be of Japanese origin, 
possibly descended from the crew of some Japanese 
ship which strayed as far as these islands some 
time in the remote past. A Haida and a Japanese 
dressed in European clothes are practically indis- 
tinguishable, bul that is not conclusive, as the same 
applies more or less to all the coast Indians. 

Their Language, however, is said to show certain 
resemblances to the Japanese, and none whatever 
to that of any other North American race, with the 
exception of one small tribe, no doubt of similar 
origin, on the Alaskan coast. 

:•: * * 

Unfortunately, since the white man has taken 
possession of the country, the Haidas, like all the 
other Indians, have sadly degenerated. Living in 
houses with glass windows, and wearing European 
clothes, which they can't take off and keep dry 
when it rains, consumption, previously unknown, 
is now rife amongst them, and what consumption 
leaves undone, whisky and the other benefits of 
civilization make up for. The result is that the once 
populous and flourishing race is now reduced to 
a mere handful. On all Graham Island there are 
only the two villages of Skidegate and Masset left, 
with a population of a few hundreds at most. 

The greater part of them are employed in the 
salmon-fishing business on the north end of Graham 
Island and on the mainland coast. During the 



172 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

spring they fish in the mouths of the Skeena, Nass, 
and other rivers, and many, of them 1 work in the 
canneries. The extensive halibut fishing in Hecate 
Straits, and that for cod outside the islands, are 
done with steam or gasolene boats, manned from 
Prince Rupert or .Vancouver. 

Then there is the whaling station at Rose Harbour, 
at the southern extremity of Moresby Island, in 
[which a number are employed. The scent in the 
atmosphere is not exactly suggestive of roses, but 
they say that those who work there get used to 
it soon. The same applies to the fertilizer factory 
at Cumshewa. 

As a consequence of these industries there are 
very few Indians to be seen in the villages during 
the spring and summer months, only old men and 
women. 

In front of the houses, ranged along the beach, 
are still to be seen those curious erections, the 
totem poles. \ 

Most of those at Skidegate, unlike those at Alert 
Bay -and elsewhere on Vancouver Island, consist of 
a plain pole surmounted by a single device, generally 
a bird, either complete or only the head, three of 
those with heads only having a rectangular board 
at the top of the pole, in which the head is set. 

These are, as I have already pointed out, not 
objects of worship, but heraldic designs, coats -of - 
arms, so to speak, although possibly emblematic 
of some tutelary spirit. 

At one place on Skidegate Inlet there is a bed 
of a peculiar soft carbonaceous " slate," and this 
the natives carve into models of totem poles and 
other devices with great ingenuity and skill, producing 




OLD HAIDA WAR ( \\.> 



ES, SKIDEG \ II. 




/ 



WEST END, QUEEN CHARLOTTE CITY. 



To face p. 172. 






1 



PRINCE RUPERT 173 

really artistic objects. Formerly baskets were made 
here too, but that industry seems to have died out ; 
in fact, it is difficult to get Indian baskets anywhere 
now, except those made in the Mission Settlement 
on the North Vancouver Indian Reserve. 

Close to the Indian village of Skidegate is the 
graveyard. The natives are Christians now, and 
many of the graves have fine marble tombstones, 
some of them being surmounted by the figure of 
an animal, either a bear or a bird of some sort. 
Many of the graves of the more important people 
have a little wooden roof over them ; over some 
recent graves I have seen white cloths stretched, 
giving them a very weird appearance. 

***** 

The Queen Charlotte group consists of Graham 
and Moresby Islands and a number of smaller ones. 
Between the two main islands is Skidegate Inlet, 
which is reduced to a mere channel at the western 
extremity, but on the eastern side forms a magnifi- 
cent harbour, twenty miles long and from five to 
eight wide. In the inlet are a number of islands, 
and the view from the high ground along the shore 
on a bright day is glorious. From Mount Etheline 
(which must surely have been named by a chemist) 
there must be a wonderful view over the inlet, and 
away out over the west coast as well, but the timber 
and undergrowth around the base of the mountain 
are so dense that an ascent is no easy undertaking. 

The whole of Moresby Island is mountainous, 
and it is deeply indented by inlets on both sides. 
There are numerous copper-mines located at 
different points, none of which have yet, however, 
reached a commercial stage. The mountainous 



174 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

country continues northwards through the western 
half of Graham Island ; it is, in fact, a continuation 
of the chain which forms the backbone of Vancouver 
Island. The eastern half of Graham Island is 
altogether different, being comparatively flat, under- 
lain by more recent sedimentary rocks, of such 
regularity that along the whole sixty miles of the 
east coast of this island there is not a single harbour. 
It is risky, on this account, for small boats to go 
out in Hecate Straits if the weather is at all doubtful. 

Along the east coast a number of ranchers have 
settled ; it is almost the only part of the island 
where there is any comparatively clear ground ; 
over the greater part the vegetation is very dense, 
being similar to that of Vancouver Island. 

Along a portion of the north coast, between Rose 
Spit and Masset Inlet, is one of the finest beaches 
in the world, some twenty miles of good, hard sand, 
over which an auto can be driven. What a mag- 
nificent seaside resort this will be in the near future ! 
How the citizens of Prince Rupert will flock over, 
and not from Prince Rupert only, but from much 
farther afield, as soon as there is proper accommo- 
dation and transportation. 

There are a number of white settlements on the 
islands, the chief being Queen Charlotte City, about 
five miles from the Indian village of Skidegate. 
A lumber-mill is situated in the heart of the " city," 
but in it only Japanese are employed. The " city " 
consists of a number of houses on a strip of flat 
ground, behind which there is a steep rise of a 
considerable height. Plank sidewalks serve as 
streets, no wheeled vehicles having yet been intro- 









PRINCE RUPERT 175 

duced into the " city," but the roads are now being 
made to connect the different settlements on the 
island, so that wheeled transport will have to be 
accommodated in the " city " before very long. 

There are two wharves, one put up by the lumber 
company, at which the steamers call, and the 
Government wharf, which up to the time of my last 
visit was purely ornamental. Among the buildings 
of importance are the hospital, the school, and the 
Government office. A little building, somewhat 
resembling a barn, serves as a church. At the time 
of my first visit it was used on alternate Sundays by 
the preachers of the two leading denominations, 
Methodist and Presbyterian, who worked in perfect 
harmony. The Episcopals, Roman Catholics, and 
any others there might be had to go without 
religious services, except such as might be held 
by visiting padres. 

When I visited the place a year later, there was 
only one sky-pilot ; the Methodist and Presbyterian 
Churches in Canada had come to some sort of a 
working agreement, and two separate preachers 
were no longer required. So the other man had got a 
job as cook in a mining camp a dozen miles away ! 
He was quite enjoying his job, and very pleased 
when I looked him up in passing. It is quite a 
usual thing out here for a man to take a variety 
of professions at different times. 

At the eastern end of the city is the hotel, a place 
in which one is always made comfortable and well 
fed. The proprietor has a ranch out on the far side 
of Lena Island, one of the larger islands in the Inlet, 
and from there he gets supplies of eggs and fresh 
vegetables of all kinds. This hotel is naturally 



176 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

the great meeting -pi ace, where people gather 
to discuss politics and other subjects, and to get 
news of the outside world' from those who may 
have arrived by the steamer. The islands are not 
dependent, however, upon the steamer for news ; 
there is a wireless station a few miles away, and 
there are two weekly papers published on Graham 
Island. 

The other meeting-place is the drug store, which 
is also the post-office. Here every one comes in 
to: get his mail after the arrival of the steamer, 
and waits to talk over things in general with every- 
body else. 

There is not yet a bank on the islands, and conse- 
quently, as all wages and salaries are paid by 
cheques, these are used as currency in the islands. 
I once had occasion to ask the hotel-keeper 
to cash me a cheque for $200 in order to 
pay my bill. He gave me a very dirty cheque 
for $93.20 on the Bank of Nova Scotia, one for 
$61.50 on the Canadian Bank of Commerce, two 
or three smaller ones on various banks, and a 
few odd dollars in cash. Each cheque had five 
or six endorsements on the back. I suppose ulti- 
mately they would reach their banks, but goodness 
knows how many hands they pass through before 
they leave the islands ! 

%z 5F *P V V 

For many years past coal has been known to 
exist at a number of places on Graham Island. 
As far back as the sixties a mine was opened up 
at Cowgitz on a seam of anthracite. A large sum 
of money was spent on a tramway to bring the 
coal to the sea, and a wharf and bunkers erected. 







TOTEM POLES, SKIDEGATE. 



To face p. 176. 



PRINCE RUPERT 177 

After all this had been clone it was discovered 
that the seam thinned out after a short distance, 
so the place was abandoned, and all subsequent 
attempts to reopen it have resulted in failure. 

But it is to be hoped that some of the searches 
for workable coal in other places may be more 
successful ; it would be a great thing for the islands 
to have an established industry of that sort. 

It is a pity that there are so many wild- 
cat propositions Coated ; the public is gulled 
by plausible advertisements, promising enormous 
returns on all money invested within a ridiculously 
short space of time, when, very often, the property 
in question has not the remotest chance of being 
underlain by coal at a workable depth from the 
surface. 

* * * • * 

A trip into the interior of the island is quite an 
undertaking ; there arc a few trails, bul there arc 
no horses to be had, so that everything has to be 
packed on one's back— blanket, tent, cooking outfit, 
provisions, and whatever spare clothing and instru- 
ments are taken. I once went out for ten days, 
taking a man to help to carry the things. We were 
both pretty heavily loaded going out, but on the 
way back our packs were much lighter, in spite 
of a number of rock specimens. 

Although the country is so heavily timbered, it 
is not at all easy to get dry wood for a fire ; the 
rainfall is very heavy, and the fallen trees rot 
quickly among the rank undergrowth. It rained 
a good deal while we were out, and sometimes it 
seemed as if we would never be able to find any- 
thing to make fire with, until we discovered 

12 



178 THE CALL OE THE WEST 

that hemlock bark would burn even when peeled 
off trees during a heavy downpour of rain. 

It is generally hard to : find a place in which 
to camp. Creeks are numerous, but they are mostly 
either in deep gullies or surrounded by swampy 
ground. When the creek is in a gully, it is 
necessary to camp up on top, wherever a little bit 
of comparatively level ground can be found between 
the trees on which to spread the blankets and 
pitch the tent. Even then it is frequently very 
damp. One has to make a thick bed of hemlock 
boughs, so as to form a more or less even and 
soft surface on which to lie. 

Travelling across country, away, from a trail, 
is no easy job, on account of the dense under- 
growth. One can generally follow a creek, but 
there are places where it is necessary to take to 
the brush, and progress is slow. Sometimes, on 
the higher ground, among the larger timber, one 
can travel fairly easily, without being hampered 
by underbrush, but down near the creeks it is no 
joke. Occasionally you come to a patch of devil's 
club, and that is worse than any thorn -bushes to 
get through. 

Ferns grow in luxuriance; one sometimes has 
to trample underfoot quantities of delicate maiden- 
hairs, for the sheer impossibility of stepping any- 
where else. The graceful skunk cabbages add to 
the beauty of the scene. They are supposed to 
have a very disagreeable and powerful odour, hence 
the name, but I have never found it at all objection- 
able, at a reasonable distance. The views along 
the creeks are gorgeous. Those who have visited 
the Fairy Glen at Bettws-y-Coed can imagine what 



PRINCE RUPERT 179 

it is like to pass through mile after mile of such 
scenery ; water rushing amid rounded rocks, deep 
pools, cascades, trees fallen across the creek, forming 
natural bridges high above the water, covered with 
bright green moss, hanging creepers, graceful ferns 
in every cranny, luxuriant bushes overhanging the 
dark pools. It is well worth the labour spent in 
travelling. 

* | :•: * * 

In .some of the valleys we came across fiddle-head 
ferns in quantities. My companion, although an 
experienced woodsman, had never eaten them 
before, and he was much taken with them when I 
showed him how to prepare them, an accomplish- 
ment which I had learned from Hard Ground Henry 
in the old Slocan days. It makes a great difference 
to one's fare in the bush to have a fresh green 
vegetable. We had taken some desiccated vege- 
tables with us, some of which were excellent, 
partieularly the potatoes, which are scarcely distin- 
guishable from the fresh article. But I shall never 
forget the peas. They are supposed to be soaked 
in water for twenty -four hours before boiling. 
Well, we soaked theni for twenty -four hours, and 
then boiled and boiled for hours, but they remained 
as hard as bullets. After a further soaking of about 
two days, with boiling for a few hours at intervals, 
it was possible to detect a slight softening, but 
that was all ! No more desiccated peas for me 
until they improve the manufacture ! 

We took no flour with us for such a short trip, 
but a few loaves of bread and a supply of hard 
tack, or ship's biscuit, to use when the bread was 
done. Hard tack is by no means bad if one has 



180 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

good teeth. It can also be boiled and prepared in 
several ways. 

Dried fruits formed a staple part of our fare ; 
one can get such a variety of them nowadays, and 
they are so handy to eat straight, besides being 
excellent when boiled with rice. When in the 
bush, my lunch generally consists of a pocketful 
of dried fruits of some kind, sometimes with 
the addition of a little bread or hard tack, and 
cheese. 

One night we slept in a shack at one of the old 
coal prospects, where an attempt had been made 
some years ago to open a mine. It is used a good 
deal by passing travellers, and scraps of food are 
left about, with the result that it swarms with mice. 
One ran over my companion's face during the night. 
It is nice to have a roof over one's head when it 
rains, and a stove indoors on which to cook your 
food, but the open air is sometimes preferable, even 
in wet weather ! 

* * * * * 

On the flanks of Mount Etheline, towards Yakoun 
Lake, the country has been devastated by a forest 
fire ; gaunt grey and blackened stubs are standing 
up everywhere, and the ground is littered with 
those that have fallen. The fire must have been 
some years ago, for a new growth is beginning 
to make its appearance. Fireweed grows in rank 
luxuriance ; the trail is obliterated by it in places ; 
between the fireweed and the skunk cabbage, the 
trail is often completely blocked, and it would be 
difficult to trace it if it were not for the frequent 
windfalls which have been sawn through, or over 
which there is some means of climbing. 



PRINCE RUPERT 181 

On the way back down the valley of the Honna 
we met a party working on the trail, making a 
good pack trail, four feet wide, over which a horse 
could travel in comfort, laying corduroy over all 
the soft places, and putting in good, substantial 
bridges over the creeks. A bridge was to be put 
in across the Honna ; the trail at that time crossed 
it in the usual primitive fashion, by means of a 
large tree felled across the river, there some eighty 
feet wide. It is sometimes rather a ticklish job 
crossing these log bridges with the water rushing 
and roaring among the rocks below; one feels 
so top-heavy with a great pack on one's back. 
The upper surface of the Log is, of course, flattened, 
but even then it is not easy for some people to 
cross without the risk of getting giddy. Fortu- 
nately, both of ns had pretty good heads. 1 

* * :•: * * 

Some day they will have roads all through the 
island ; they are trying to open it up, but, with the 
exception of the prospect of finding workable coal 
seams, there is not much to attract any one into 
the interior of the island. The road up the Honna 
Valley will be chiefly used as a means of communi- 
cation between Skidegate Inlet and the north coast, 
via Masset Inlet. 

There are few open patches in the interior, and 
the clearing is so very heavy, that there is little 
inducement for any one to take up land for culti- 
vation in the interior at present. The timber is 
smaller than that on Vancouver Island, so far as 

1 The little bridge seen in the photograph has a handrail, 
but these are not generally considered necessary in the case 
of larger log bridges. 



182 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

I have seen, and there is a 1 large proportion of 
hemlock, which is useless except for pulp, so that, 
except on the coast, where it is handy for transpor- 
tation, the logging industry is not likely to develop 
on these islands for some time to come. 

* * * * * 

The steamship service to; the islands leaves much 
to be desired ; on the return trip from Queen 
Charlotte City one has to go all the way down the 
coast of Moresby Island, some hundred miles or so, 
making numerous calls, and then return north to 
Prince Rupert. It is an interesting trip, but wastes 
a whole day. 

The passage down Moresby Island is almost all 
inland sailing, between smaller islands and the main 
one, some of the passages being very tortuous. The 
scenery is similar toi that along the mainland coast. 
A number of copper prospects are seen, some with 
tramways down to the sea. Jedway, the former 
seat of the Mining Recorder, is a picturesquely 
situated little settlement, in »a beautiful harbour. 
The Mining Recorder has now been moved to Queen 
Charlotte City, having been promoted to the rank 
of Government Agent, and Lord High Everything 
Else in view of the growing importance of the 
islands. 

On one of the smaller islands on the way down 
there is a hot spring. Some day it will be 
" discovered," and turned to profit ; the millionaires 
of the Pacific Coast will flock there to " take the 
waters " and be cured of all sorts of ailments. 

The last port of call is Rose Harbour, the whaling 
station. Last time I came down we saw a whaler 
come in with a large wh&le lashed alongside. 




IN'DIAX CEMETERY, SKIDEGATE. 



IN CAMP 




MY COMPANION ON THE TRAIL. 




YAKOUN LAKE. 



fo face p. 182. 



PRINCE RUPERT 183 

A whaling station is not a place at which one 
wants to stop very long ; they say that the employees 
get so used to the scent that they miss it if they 
go away, and that it is most healthy, being particu- 
larly good for consumptives. But for a visitor it 
is just a little too rich, and I almost think I would 
rather die of consumption than live there ! 

Then we leave Rose Harbour and its savoury 
atmosphere behind, and head out into the open 
water of Hecate Strait, where it is liable to be 
pretty lively, and, making straight for Prince 
Rupert, which is nearly two hundred miles away, 
the Queen Charlotte Islands are soon lost to view. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE PEACE RIVER 

The Peace River ! What fascination there is in 
the mere mention of the name of that great 
mysterious river of the unknown north ! It is the 
first to break through the barrier of the Rocky 
Mountains, and it follows its majestic course from 
west to east in a deep valley through a strange 
and silent land full of mystery and charm, until 
it ultimately unites with the Slave River below Lake 
Athabaska, and passes down into that vast inland 
sea, Great Slave Lake, from which the mighty 
Mackenzie wends its silent way, if not " through 
caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea," 
at least through an endless wilderness, down to a 
sea that is sunless half the year. 

In comparison with the Mackenzie the Peace is 
quite a southern river ; it does not belong to the 
desolate wastes of the extreme North, but to a 
country which will one day be thickly populated, 
and that day is not very far distant. 

Even the name Peace River has something of 
mystery about it. True, it was named after Peace, 
the lieutenant of the intrepid explorer Mackenzie, 
and the name is not, as one might imagine, the 
translation of some Indian name of legendary or 

184 



THE PEACE RIVER 185 

mystical significance. But the effect is there all 
the same ; one imagines the stately flow of the 
great river mile after mile through a vast country 
inhabited only by bear and deer, and a few nomadic 
natives, some of whom still do not even nominally 
own allegiance to the British Crown, a country 
where civilization has not yet found a foothold, 
where the white man is represented only by a 
Hudson's Bay Company or a Revillon Freres factor 
here and there, an occasional Jesuit mission, or 
an outpost of that magnificent body the Royal 
North -West Mounted Police, who think nothing of 
riding a thousand miles or so to prove that the 
British Empire extends even into this remote region, 
and that British justice reigns even here. 

And so the Peace River has flowed for countless 
thousands of years. Long before the first white 
man ever set eye on it, long before even the first 
red man arrived, it flowed in the same silent majesty 
as to-day. In the days when the bear came down 
to drink on the banks of the Thames he also came 
clown to the banks of the Peace as he docs now ; 
the little Thames has changed, but the great Peace 
has remained the same through all these centuries. 
But before many years have passed all this will 
be changed, the Peace River country will be one 
of the great granaries of the world, wheat will be 
shipped from the Peace to the Thames via the 

I Pacific Coast ports and the Panama Canal ; settlers 
are going in already by the hundred, two railways 
are being built from the Alberta side, and one will 

i soon be started from British Columbia ; in a very 
few years one will be able to admire the grandeur 
of the Peace River Pass from a comfortable seat in 



186 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

an observation car, or from the deck of a tourist 
steamer ! 

***** 

At present there are two ways of getting into this 
country, from above and from below ; one may go 
to the headwaters of the Peace in Central British 
Columbia and descend in a canoe, or one may 
approach the river five hundred miles lower down, 
in Northern Alberta, and travel up-stream. 

The most interesting and least laborious way is to 
do as I did, going in from above and coming out 
below, travelling with the stream ail the way down. 

The journey up from the coast through the Fraser 
River Canon, on to Ashcroft, over the Cariboo 
Road to Soda Creek, and thence up the Fraser 
to Fort George, is full of interest, but as I have 
already described all this to you we will pass it 
over now. As usual, we had great trouble with 
the auto stage on the Cariboo road ; they are very 
fine Napiers, but the conditions are so severe that 
it is no wonder there is always some trouble — the 
wonder is that there is not more. On this occasion 
the bearings heated fearfully, and we made very 
poor progress on the first da}^. Finally, about 
5 p.m. the shaft of the auto broke, effectively 
putting a stop to our travelling for that day. 
Fortunately, we were within a mile of the Seventy 
Mile House, where we put up for the night. The 
chauffeur telephoned to Ashcroft for a new shaft 
to be sent out, and this arrived on a special auto 
at midnight, so that we got off again by 9.30 the 
following morning, reaching Soda Creek about 
twelve hours later. 

The trip up the Fraser, through the Cottonwood 



THE PEACE RIVER 187 

and Fort George Canons, does not lose in' interest 
by being repeated. About eight o'clock on the 
second morning a black object appeared floating 
down the stream, which, on approaching closer, 
was seen to be a raft with two men on board. 
This is quite a common method of travelling here, 
but dangerous on account of the rocks in the 
canons. A great many men are leaving the Grand 
Trunk construction camps above Fort George, being 
dissatisfied with the conditions, and they make their 
way out to the outside world again by the cheapest 
means of conveyance available. Some of them don't 
even know that they have a tramp of nearly 170 
miles before them afler they reach Soda Creek, 
for the river is very rough beyond that point. 1 

Shortly after passing through the Fort George 

Canon a man was seen on a rock in mid -stream, 

gesticulating wildly. By skilful manipulation and 

providential good luck the steamer was brought 

close alongside the rock, and the man jumped 

aboard as she passed, for the main deck of these 

steamers is very little above water level. It was 

a narrow squeak ; he had not expected to leave 

that rock alive. With two companions he had set 

out on a raft from one of the camps above Fort 

George, but having got as far as this safely, the raft 

i had been borne by the rushing waters against this 

! rock in spite of all their efforts to guide it clear. 

1 All their dunnage had been swept overboard, and, 

i thinking the raft would be smashed to pieces, this 

; man had managed to scramble on to the rock, 

1 where he had been without food, his clothes soaked, 

1 since early morning. The other two men had stuck 

1 Written in 1912. 



188 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

to the raft, which had held together, and passed 
out of his sight down into the canon. Fortunately, 
we were able to tell him that they had passed safely 
through the canon. No wonder he was thankful 
when the steamer came along, and vowed he would 
never trust himself on a raft again ! 

Unfortunately, such accidents are not uncommon 
many lives are lost through men unacquainted with 
river navigation attempting to make the passage 
on rafts. It is a risky undertaking for an expert, 
and for novices nothing short of foolhardy. But 
the steamer trip is expensive, and they generally 
prefer the risk to the expense. 

***** 

We are in Fort George now. " South " is still 
the principal scene of activity, and is in any case 
our most convenient stopping place, situated as it 
is on the bank of the Eraser, whereas " Central I 
is on the Nechaco, three miles farther up. 

This is our jumping-off place ; from here on we 
must find our own transportation. When the water 
is high enough small steamers run up the Fraser 
all the way to Tete Jaune Cache, but, the river 
being low after the recent dry spell, there are 
no boats running at present except an excursion 
trip on Sunday as far as the mouth of Willow River, 
twenty -five miles up. We have to go forty miles 
up the Fraser to Giscome Portage, where w r e pass 
over to the headwaters of the Peace, so we decide 
to take advantage of the excursion on Sunday for 
that portion of the distance. 

The next thing to do is to try and get a canoe 
and an Indian to take us up as far as the Portage. 
On the other side it will be down -stream, and we 



THE PEACE RIVER 189 

will be able to manage by ourselves until we reach 
McLeod, where another man is to join us ; but as 
my companion, Mr. Williamson, is not very expert 
with a dugout, and I have never handled one before, 
we are not particularly anxious to face the Giscome 
Rapids by ourselves, and we go all through the 
ranch eree to try and find a native to go with us. 
But every available man is employed on the G.T.P. 
construction, and we cannot get one to come except 
at an utterly exorbitant price, so we have to face 
the journey alone after all. 

A dugout thirty-six feet long, hollowed out of 
a cottonwood log, is bought from an aged warrior 
for thirty dollars ; he asked forty and came down 
to thirty -five, and would not agree to part with 
the canoe for less, but when I started counting 
out the money he took it eagerly. It was quite a 
high enough price for it. The value of a canoe 
depends to a great extent upon where it is bought ; 
at the head of navigation on a river the price is 
at a maximum, at the lower end of the navigable 
part of a river canoes are almost given away with 
a pound of tea. 

Our aged friend was not going to be outdone, 
however ; there was only one paddle in the canoe, 
and as we required at least three, the others had 
to be bought separately. Two were produced, 
belonging to the old man's son, which he agreed 
to sell for a dollar each, but unfortunately, at that 
moment the son's wife appeared and demanded to 
know what was going on. On being told she 
expressed great indignation and contempt at her 
father-in-law's business capacity, affirming that the 
paddles, being of superior style of workmanship, 



190 THE CALL OE THE WEST 



would not be sold for less than a dollar and a 
half apiece. To this she adhered firmly, expressing 
herself in very fluent and voluble language, which, 
unfortunately, had to be translated for us, and so 
no doubt lost much of its original beauty. She 
was ably seconded by another lady who emerged 
from the shack behind her, and between them they 
made the old man look pretty small. Talk about 
suffragettes ! 

That being satisfactorily accomplished, and the 
canoe lodged on board the steamer, we have to 
buy provisions, cooking utensils, and all the various 
accessories for a trip which may last several 
months — for in going out into the bush it is necessary 
to provide against contingencies. Camping outfit 
we have brought with us, but provisions and 
accessories it is always best to get at the jumping- 
off place. 

* * * * * 

On the Sunday we travel up to Willow River 
with a gay crowd of excursionists, all in their 
Sunday best, while we are in our " digging clothes." 
All the youth and beauty of both South and Central 
is on board, to say nothing of the city magnates 
and their families. This steamer is a smaller 
edition of the B.X., called B.C. Express ; showing 
rather a lack of originality, as the former name is 
simply the popular abbreviation of the latter, which 
is the name of the company which runs these 
steamers and stages. 

At Willow River our canoe is launched carelessly 
and half filled with water, which takes some time 
to bail out. It is rather embarrassing to start off 
before such a crowd ; if it had been down -stream 






1 






THE PEACE RIVER 191 

it would have been simple, but to paddle a heavily 
laden dugout up-stream is not so easy for those not 
used to such work. 

So we spend as much time as possible in loading 
up our dunnage, and stowing everything snugly 
away in such a manner that the canoe will balance 
properly in the water, thus giving the excursionists 
time to disperse. But there is not much to see at 
Willow River except the G.T.P. construction camp, 
which is close by, and most of the people are soon 
spread out along the bank of the river, where they 
will have a good view of us as we go off. There 
are some, of course, armed with kodaks, who wait 
at the steamer to see us start. 

At last all our dunnage is stowed away satis- 
factorily, and we cannot put off the fatal moment 
any longer, but have to take our places in the 
canoe, untie the painter, and paddle off with a 
look of unconcern which we are Tar from feeling. 

To one new to it a dugout feels very much like 
a tightrope looks ; it wobbles fearfully with Ihe 
slightest movement. The under side is perfectly 
round and smooth, so that there is nothing to 
prevent it from tipping over sideways if the balance 
is disturbed. One soon gets into the way of not 
indulging in any side movement, and travelling is 
quite comfortable, but at first it is a very weird 
sensation ; one is continually on tenterhooks, ex- 
pecting every moment to find oneself in the water. 
If the log from which the canoe has been made 
is not perfectly straight and true, the dugout will 
be correspondingly uneven in outline, which makes 
her " cranky " and difficult to handle. Ours is not 
bad, but she is a little cranky. 



192 THE GALL OF THE WEST 

We strike out boldly, and paddle for all we are 
worth, keeping close in to the shore so as to avoid 
the current. But before we have made a hundred 
yards the current catches her nose, and she swings 
round on us before we can do anything to prevent : 
it. We are facing down -stream now, and drifting 
with the current, for we cannot paddle backwards 
to any effect. Rather an ignominious position in 
front of all those onlookers, but my companion 
has foreseen this contingency, and is prepared for ( 
it. With a few strokes we make the shore, where 
we get out and make fast a towline to the stern, 
which is now facing up-stream. 

As there is scarcely any difference between the 
nose and the stern, it looks as if our undignified 
procedure had really been a skilful manoeuvre to 
reverse the canoe for the purpose of lining her 
up. Anyway we don't attempt any more paddling 
against the stream, but line her up the rest of the 
way. One man scrambles along the shore, hauling 
on the line, while the other sits in the canoe and 
keeps the nose out from the shore by means of a 
pole. Where there is good going on the shore it is 
easy work, but in some places it is very rough 
going. About four miles up we camp for the night. 

The following morning we reach the foot of 
Giscome Rapids, and here we have been told that 
we must cross over to the other bank. It is with 
considerable trepidation that we strike out into the 
stream, being afraid that our canoe will swing round 
as she did before, and that we will lose a great 
deal of ground in crossing. It is about four hundred 
yards across here ; the far shore looks a very long 
way off when one is so close down to the water, 



THE PEACE RIVER 193 

and the water in between is sweeping down at 
a fearful rate. Why, we may be carried down a 
couple of miles before we can make the other side ! 
As we expected, we have not got far out into the 
stream before our nose is swung round and we 
are floating merrily down with the current. But we 
have got to get across, and don't want to be carried 
back to Willow River in the process, so, very care- 
fully, one at a time, we turn round in our places 
so as to face up-stream once more, and, having 
safely accomplished this feat, we again proceed to 
wield the paddles. Strangely enough she does not 
swing round on us again, but allows us to maintain 
her nose at a slight angle to the stream, so that the 
force of the current carries her across, while our 
paddling prevents us from losing too much ground. 
Now we are in mid -stream and the water is rush- 
ing past at a tremendous pace. It looks bad enough 
from the upper deck of a steamer, but when you 
are right down in it the current is something fierce. 
But we keep her nose over, and the current carries 
us across rapidly ; the smooth water on the other 
side is within a hundred yards of us now ; we will 
soon be there, and we have not lost such an awful 
lot of ground yet. We feel happier now that we 
have got past the worst of it, and can see our goal 
rapidly getting nearer. 

The comparatively smooth water and eddies 
extend for about fifty yards out from the shore ; 
there is a sharp line showing where the current 
ceases, and we are now within a few yards of this 
line. Now we have crossed it, and although the 
i water here is moving down at a fairly good pace, 
it is nothing in comparison to the current in mid- 
13 



194 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

stream, and we can take it easy now. Another 
couple of minutes and we have reached the shore, 
and on looking round we are agreeably surprised 
to find that we have lost less than half a mile 
in crossing. 

It is lunch -time now, and we feel quite ready 
for lunch after our exertions. Then we resume the 
process of lining up the bank, and are soon in the 
rapids. There is nothing in the way of a cataract 
here, the so-called rapids consisting of a portion of 
the river-bed thickly strewn with large boulders, 
among which the water rushes with great violence, 
but along the right bank there is a comparatively 
smooth channel, up which it is possible to line 
without very much difficulty. We have not reached 
the end of the rapids when darkness falls, and we 
have to camp again. 

On the morning of the third day we reach 
Giscome, where we have to leave the Fraser and 
portage across the intervening seven and a half 
miles to Summit Lake, one of the headwaters of the 
Peace River. This short distance separates the 
waters which flow to the Pacific from those which 
flow into the Arctic Ocean. This being a regular 
canoe route, there is a wagon -road across the 
portage, and they have specially constructed wagons 
to take canoes over. 

The flies are very troublesome during the day at 
this season, so they are only working the teams by 
night, and we have to wait until evening before 
getting across. Meanwhile we are objects of great 
interest to little Ada Mary, the seven-year-old 
daughter of the rancher who runs the portage. She 
makes up her mind that she will accompany us 



THE PEACE RIVER 195 

across the portage, and on being turned back she 
disappears into the house weeping bitterly. 

Another party arrives that day, two members of 
the United States Biological Survey on their way 
into the North country. They have come down 
the Fraser from Tete Jaune Cache in a magnificent 
Peterborough canoe loaded with specimen cases and 
other paraphernalia. As there is only one team 
working they have lo wait until the following night, 
and wc see no more of thorn. 

The tramp across the portage in the late evening 
is pleasant, and that night we sleep in the warehouse 
on the shore of Summit Lake, surrounded by 
hanging hams, sides of bacon and sacks of oats, 
and accompanied by lots of mice. But it was not 
worth while opening up our dunnage and pitching 
camp in the dark. 

From here on it is lo be all down-stream, and we 
are content. 

* * * * * 

In the morning we start out on our hundred - 
mile paddle down the Crooked River to McLeod, 
and never has a river so well deserved ils name as 
this one, for the distance is a little over fifty miles 
as the crow Hies ; in places, alter a detour of several 
miles yon come hack within a lew yards almost of 
the same trees you saw an hour before ! 

Summit Lake is a delightful sheet of water of 
irregular shape, about six miles long, surrounded 
by undulating hills, densely limbered. In the 
distance is Teapot Mountain, our landmark in 
finding the outlet from the lake. 

At one point on the shore wc see smoke, and 
on landing it turns out to be a camp • the lire 



196 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

warden is coming up this way to attend to several 
reported forest fires. He has a large area to look 
after, and it is a pretty hard job after a long dry 
spell, for fires get started somehow or other in all 
sorts of places. 

Keeping Teapot Mountain on our left we pass 
out of the lake into peaceful little Crooked River, 
a hundred feet wide, with reeds and water-lilies 
growing in abundance in the still water. An idyllic 
spot this for a summer holiday resort, and no doubt 
there will be a tourist hotel here when the railway 
comes. 

The trip down Crooked River is worth living 
for ; it can be done in three days, but more comfort- 
ably in four. In places the stream is not more than 
six feet wide, a little brooklet with rapidly running 
water, and one has a job to keep the nose of the 
canoe from jamming in the bank. Frequently one 
has to bend double in order to avoid the over- 
hanging branches of the willows and alders which 
nearly meet above. It is a tricky thing guiding 
the canoe past snags in the stream and watching 
that one is not swept overboard by a trailing 
branch. 

The river is generally from thirty to fifty feet 
wide in this part, but one has to watch the 
channel, as there are lots of boulders and many 
riffles and bars. In man}' places the stones have 
been taken out from the channel and ranged along 
either side of it as a guide in low water. Then, at 
the sharp bends, it is impossible to prevent the 
nose of the canoe from charging the bank. Then 
look out for your head while you prize her out ! 
The branches come sweeping down close to the 




A PLAC I FOR A I.A/V HOLIDAY. 




MCLEOD'S LAKE POST. 



To face p. 196. 



THE PEACE RIVER 197 

water ; sometimes you have to seize a branch and 
pull on that. 

In these narrow parts there is a good current 
and we go merrily along, but watch the channel 
well ! If her nose slicks between two rocks and 
she swings round, then it is all up : our stuff will all 
be in the water in a jiffy unless we jump out and 
hold her in time. In these places the paddles are 
laid aside and the poles are used. 

But in some places this tiny little streamlet spreads 
out over a width of two or three hundred feet in a 
beautiful flat meadow. The banks are generally 
lined with willows, and sometimes the bottom land 
is densely overgrown with them. In these parts the 
water is dead ; it is a case of constant paddling for 
miles and miles. What a place for a lazy holiday ' 

Sometimes the river divides up into several 
sloughs, and it is impossible lo lell which is the 
channel ; one may follow a slough r for a mile or 
more, and then have lo turn back and look for 
another way. By carefully observing the direction 
in which the long grass under the surface is bent 
it is generally possible to discover the course of 
the stream, but it is often impossible to detect any 
deflection at all in the grass. One might easily get 
lost among the sloughs. 

* * * * * 

On the second day we meet three large boats 
being rowed up-stream. They are Hudson's Bay 
boats coming up from McLeod to the portage for 

supplies. Thai is how everything goes into that 
remote country. These boats go backwards and 
forwards between the two points throughout the 
1 Pronounced " slew.' 



198 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

season. They make the round trip in a week ; there 
is not much difference between the trip down -stream 
and that up-stream, there is so much dead water, but 
it must be rather a job to take those big boats over 
some of the riffles. 

Beyond these we see no human beings until we 
reach McLeod, for this glorious country is entirely 
uninhabited. But most of the land along the river 
has been taken up within the last few years. 

A number of lakes are strung along the course 
of the river, and navigation on these is not always 
a picnic, for a wind is liable to spring up, raising 
a swell in five minutes sufficient to swamp a canoe. 
One has to follow one shore, crossing over as rapidly 
as possible from one point to the next, and where 
a bay is a couple of miles wide it is necessary to 
paddle hard if there is any sign of wind. If one 
gets caught in the open the only thing to do is to 
keep her nose well into the waves ; a little water 
shipped can be bailed out, but if she gets caught 
broadside on it is a bad look-out ! 

In the lakes, again, it is easy to get lost : one may 
go down a deep bay and search about among the 
reeds for the outlet for hours, and finally have to 
come back a mile or two and try another bay. We 
were told of two men who spent four days trying to 
find the outlet of one of these lakes ! 

The scenery is simply glorious ; here is a broad 
sheet of water with golden water-lilies and bul- 
rushes fringing the side, rich green meadows 
stretching back from the bank t« where the tall 
poplars and cottonwoods form a fitting back- 
ground to the peaceful scene ; then we come to a 
steep bank covered with rich dark green jack-pines. 



THE PEACE RIVER 199 

the yellow green of this spring's growth tipping 
each bunch of needles and giving a charming effect, 
and the paler green of the tamarack adding 
variety ; the bank closely lined with willows, here 
and there a great cottonwood with its rich grey 
bark and shining leaves. Then we pass through a 
narrow gorge and see nothing but the luxuriant 
growth of the alders above us on either side. 
Again we come to a broad meadow, an ideal 
pasturage, with no living thing to pasture there- 
at least no creature shows itself to us. In many of 
these meadows there is a profusion of wild oats, 
an earnest of what this fertile valley will produce 
when it is brought under cultivation. 

At intervals along the banks camping -grounds 
are seen, but these arc best avoided, especially the 
Indian ones. We choose a level spot and make 
our own camp at dusk, pitching our 7 by 7 oiled 
silk, mosquito-proof tent, and cooking our supper, 
which we eat before we unroll our blankets, as 
these serve for seats at mealtime. Wood and water 
we always have in abundance. Then we sleep the 
sleep of the just, and rise at 5.30, make our break- 
fast, pack up, and get off by 7.30 for another day's 
enjoyment. 

This is a bad country for mosquitoes and black 
flies, but, owing to the exceptionally dry season, 
we are troubled very little by them. 

***** 

On the fourth morning out from Summit Lake 
we rise at four and make a start by six o'clock, for 
we want to reach McLeod, and the greater part of 
our journey to-day is along McLeod's Lake, which 
means paddling continuously with no stream to help 



200 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

us. The lake is some sixteen miles long, and in 
crossing one bay four or five miles wide we are 
overtaken by a sudden squall ; great waves are 
lashed up in a moment, white tops all round. We 
head into the bay as much as we dare and paddle 
for all we are worth, cutting through the waves. 
We must be two miles from 1 the nearest shore, and 
we dare not head any more into the bay or we 
would get the waves broadside on and the canoe 
would be swamped in an instant. It is a ticklish 
position ; the length of the canoe is so great that 
she cuts through several waves, and a good bit of 
water comes in over the bows. We paddle on for 
dear life, without respite, and it certainly is hard 
work, when you are not used to it, to paddle hard 
for a long time without a spell. Presently the 
wind abates a little, and after a few minutes there 
is an appreciable improvement in the water ; the 
white tops begin to disappear, but the waves are 
still running pretty high. Cautiously we edge a 
little farther into the bay, and after another twenty- 
five minutes' paddling we get into sheltered waters 
and can at last take a spell. My back is aching, 
and it is a blessed relief to be able to sit down 
again and rest, for when paddling hard we rise 
off the seats, erect on our knees in the bottom of 
the canoe so as to get a better purchase. 

Then McLeod is reached at last ; we see the 
Hudson's Bay post with its flagpole, the native 
village and the little church, for the Jesuits have 
been all over this Northern country for many a 
year. This is one of the oldest Hudson's Bay posts 
in British Columbia ; it is over a hundred years old. 

Here we find Norwegian Gus, who has come over 




ON I'Alv^MI' K'lVlK. 




GUS EXAMINES THK HEAD OF FIXLAY KAI'IDS. 



To face p. 200. 



THE PEACE RIVER 201 

from his home on Stuart Lake and has been waiting 
a week for us. And a fine fellow he turns out to 
be. Since he came up into the North country 
twelve years ago he has never had a hat on his 
head, and as I never wear a hat in the bush, rain 
or fine, we are a pair. His head, with its shock of 
fair hair, handsome features, blue eyes and unkempt 
beard, reminds one of a great St. Bernard dog, 
magnificent in its animal beauty. A face that one 
instinctively trusts, feeling confident that whatever 
difficulties and dangers the journey may have in 
store, we will be safe with Gus. An expert woods- 
man, and absolute master of a canoe, resourceful 
and daring, yet always prudent, never foolhardy. 
To hear him talk you would think he was the 
veriest tyro, such is the innate modesty of conscious 
strength ; not the affected modesty of one who 
seeks for admiration, but the real modesty of one 
who proves his worth in deeds, not words. A 
man of clean life, abstaining from whisky and the 
other vices which are usually considered indispen- 
sable from life in the wilds. 

Such is the man who is to be our companion 
down the Peace River, a rough diamond if ever 
there was one, and not so rough either, but gentle 
and refined in his conversation. 

» • * * * 

It is Saturday afternoon when we reach McLeod, 
and we stay there over Sunday, making preparations 
for the journey, washing our clothes, for it is a 
! week since we left Fort George ; and Gus bakes 
a batch of bread in the oven at the Hudson's Bay 
post. 

A strange life, that of a Hudson's Bay factor, living 



202 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

alone with only a few Indians for company. Most 
of them marry Mooches^ many dispensing with 
the sanction of the Church on the union, but this 
man is still a bachelor. There is another white 
man in the place, the priest, but he travels 
about a lot in his large parish, and is not very 
much at home here. In any case he is a French- 
Canadian who speaks imperfect English, and the 
Hudson's Bay men, who are generally Scotchmen, 
have little dealing with the priests at any time. 
Some of them are regular cranks, preferring their 
solitude, and resenting the intrusion of other white 
men into their domains, but most of them are glad 
enough to see a white face now and then, and to 
be able to talk about the great world outside which 
seems so far away. 

Much has taken place in the world since this 
post was established here over a hundred years 
ago, but here it is very much the same as it was 
then — the strong log building with its outhouses, 
the vegetable garden enclosed by a rail fence, the 
flagstaff upon which the Union Jack is hoisted on 
Sundays, the native village with its little church, 
the priest travelling around in his canoe over 
hundreds of miles, visiting his scattered flock— all 
these must be very much as they were a century 
ago. 

But it will not long be so quiet, for land is being 
taken up all through the North country ; a railway 
will soon pass through here on the way to the 
Peace River, and the fertile valleys will come under 
the plough. Even now there is a survey party 
encamped on the opposite side of the Pack River ; 
they have been away up the Finlay, whose broad 



THE PEACE RIVER 203 

valley will afford homes for many thousands in 
a few years. 

In the afternoon an Indian comes to us with 
samples of ore which he has brought from some- 
where away to the east, beyond the Parsnip River, 
apparently across the divide ; he wants us to go 
and examine the place, which he says is rich in 
mineral, but we have no time, and we have heard 
such tales before. The samples are nothing out 
of the way. 

:i: tf * * * 

The Pack River flows out of McLeod's Lake ; 
it is a good -sized stream, but in many places 
there are riffles over which the canoe has to be 
dragged, wading in the shallow water. 

And what beautiful green meadows we pass 
through, lightly timbered with poplar and birch ; 
one looks in vain for the Jersey cows to complete 
the scene. But these too will come soon. 

Then we come lo Tootage Lake ; on the nearer 
shore there is a splash and a rustle, and a fine 
black bear disappears into the bush. 

By the evening we reach the confluence of the 

Pack and Parsnip Rivers. The latter is a large, 

rapidly flowing stream with turbid waters, running 

north-west in the great valley which parallels the 

Rocky Mountains for six hundred miles, being 

occupied successively by many different rivers. The 

Parsnip, flowing north-west and the Finlay, flowing 

south-east, unite lo form the mighty Peace River, 

I which breaks through the Rockies, flowing due east. 

We make good time, paddling with the stream, 

j averaging forty miles a day, and two more days 

bring us nearly to the fork of the Parsnip and 



204 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

Finlay Rivers. Once we see a camp, and find it 
is two prospectors who have run short of supplies 
and are going out to MeLeod to replenish their 
stock. They are laboriously lining their canoe 
up-stream, and one man has hurt his foot, so they 
have to lay off for a couple of days. 

In places the river sweeps round, forming a 
cutbank, two or three hundred feet high, of clay and 
sandy material. The softer beds are riddled with 
holes, the abodes of birds of the swallow type. 
At one point an enormous cat stares at us from 
the bank, and runs along watching us. It is a 
lynx, an ugly -looking brute to meet unarmed. 
* * * * * 

As we approach the head of the Peace River, 
Mount Selwyn comes into view. It is not very 
high, something over six thousand feet, not even 
the highest peak in the immediate neighbourhood, 
but it marks the portal of the Peace River Pass. 
We have to paddle all round two sides of it, and 
our next camp will be on the bank of the Peace 
under its shade. 

There are two great rapids on the Peace River— 
Finlay Rapids, where it enters the mountains, a 
mile below the confluence of the Parsnip and Finlay 
Rivers, and Parle Pas Rapids, where it leaves the 
mountains ? forty miles lower down. 

Sweeping round past the mouth of the Finlay, 
on this rapidly moving sheet of water, half a mile 
wide, one begins to feel anxious about the swirling 
rapids so close below. But Gus is there, and he 
knows the river, so all is well. 

Now the roar of the rapids ahead becomes more 
distinct ; from a distant murmur, hardly distin- 



THE PEACE RIVER 205 

guishable above the rush of the waters close by, 
it grows imperceptibly to a loud roar, drowning 
all other sounds. 

Great jagged rocks are seen ahead all across the 
river ; woe betide the luckless canoe that is swept 
down there ! We must be careful, and make the 
shore before it is too late ; if we once get among 
the first rocks we will be swept on irresistibly like 
a straw, and no boat could live in those waters ; 
if she was not dashed against the rocks she would 
be swamped before going fifty yards. 

Nearer and nearer are the rocks, louder and louder 
is the roar ; it is deafening, we can hardly hear 
each other speak. See the spray on the rocks ; 
look at the boiling eddies among them ! What a 
frightful place ; God help us if we once get down 
there! Can we make the shore now? Will we 
not be carried down between those two black rocks 
where the water is pouring through so fiercely? 
The water for man} 7 yards on either side seems to 
converge on that one gap ; it is rushing through 
with incredible fury. And look at the seething 
mass just beyond ; there is a rock just below the 
surface right in the middle of the channel. No 
canoe could live for ten seconds in that ! Or if 
we manage to keep out of the frightful suction of 
that appalling death-trap, we might get down on 
[the far side of that big rock mass. What would 
| it feel like when the canoe, carried along like a 
istraw T in that raging torrent, strikes that smooth, 
round rock and is swept round and overturned? 
Or if we can keep her on the comb of the water 
and get her nose in between that rock and the 
next, and are carried down into the seething whirl- 



206 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

pool below? There must be a drop of at least 
two feet there ; the nose will go under and we will 
be struggling in the icy water, lucky if our heads are 
dashed against the rocks at once ! What a death ! 

Gus has raised himself on his knees, and is care- 
fully watching the river ahead. Now r it is time, 
to turn into the shore, and with a few swift strokes 
of the paddle we are in still water close to the 
shore, which we reach without further ado. 
Standing up on dry land, the rocks are seen to be 
still a long way off ; I might have known that 
Gus knew his business, and would not venture an 
inch farther than was absolutely safe ! 

Keeping close in to the shore we go down some 
way yet, and then out with the line ; and with 
one man in the canoe to guide her, we let her 
right down to the beginning of the rapids. 

Now comes the portage. We unload all the 
dunnage and carry it down a few hundred yards. 
Then we return to the canoe, and Gus wades out 
into the stream to see if it is possible to line 
her down part of the way, as it is a laborious 
process dragging even an empty canoe over the 
rocks, and it does no good to the canoe either. 

When the water is high it is eas} 7 enough to get 
past here, and generally, even in the dry season, 
it is possible to line all the way down, but th'e 
water is so exceptionally low this summer that 
rocks which Gus has never seen before are high 
out of the water now, and the problem is much 
more difficult. 

After due consideration he decides on a course, 
and we shove her out into the stream, Gus guiding 
her from the rocks with a pole, or wading breast 




, MM.AV RAPIDS. 




IN SI ill w \ I i R AG UN. 




IN l'l- u I RI\ i R PASS. 



To fac« p. 206. 



THE PEACE RIVER 207 

deep in the water, guiding her nose in between the 
rocks, not letting her go out too far from the side. 
Williamson, too, wades out in the deep water part 
of the time. I hold on to the line with might 
and main, keeping the stern from swinging out, 
and that is no easy job when the nose is guided 
round outside a rock, and the current catches her 
on the inner side. 

Now we come to a jagged point of rock where 
the water boils past, falling over a ledge four or 
five feet high into a seething whirlpool below. 
Beyond lhat is a chaos of rocks and white, boiling 
foam. We cannot line the canoe past that ! So 
we have to portage her, dragging her across the 
rocks, using all the pieces of timber we can collect 
as skids, for not only is it very hard work dragging 
the canoe over the rough rocks, but the sharp 
points are liable to injure her. 

Then we come to the place where we can line 
her down several hundred yards more, but again 
a portage is necessary, and the dragging process 
is repeated until finally, alter about half a mile, 
she is landed in smooth water and Finlay Rapids 
are safely passed. 

Then we go back and fetch the dunnage, making 
several trips, for there is a lot, what with food, 
blankets, axes, instruments, cooking utensils and 
so on ; and then it is time for lunch, and we feel 
that we have earned it — and if I have earned mine, 
what about Williamson and Gus, who are soaked 
through ! But it is all part of the day's work, 
and after a good meal and a rest, and drying out 
a little, we start out for the afternoon's paddling. 



208 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

That afternoon we only make about eight miles, 
and camp early under the shadow of Mount 
Selwyn. We are now in the Pass, surrounded by. 
steep mountains rising three or four thousand feet 
up from the river. The peaks have all been rounded 
by glacial action ; there is none of the ruggedness 
which is characteristic of the mountains in Southern 
British Columbia, no sharp points, no glaciers, no 
snow except a small patch or two here and there, 
for the altitudes are not great here. The Peace 
River Pass is only two thousand feet above sea- 
level, whereas the main line of the C.P.R. passes 
through the Kicking Horse Pass at an elevation 
of five thousand five hundred feet, and farther 
south, in the States, the passes are very much 
higher still. 

But, in spite of its less rugged character, the 
scenery here is magnificent. What could be more 
awe-inspiring than to float down this great river, 
smooth and peaceful now, with no trace of its recent 
fury, great blue -grey mountains on either side, with 
yellow -green patches of grass shining in the sun 
wherever the surface is flat enough for soil to rest? 
Here and there a clump of trees, a solitary pine 
clinging to an inaccessible precipice ; one wonders 
where it can get a hold for its roots. And in the 
valley bottom, wherever there is a little flat ground, 
a magnificent grove of cottonwoods. Above all the 
deep blue sky, and the reflection of the whole scene 
in the placid waters of the river. 

And to think of the untold ages during which 
the river has flowed in solemn majesty through 
this great cleft in the mountain range, to think 
of the millions of years it has taken to cut this 



THE PEACE RIVER 209 

pass out of the solid rock which barred its way : 
what a pigmy man is in comparison ! 

But man has been scratching the face of the earth 
even here ; on the flank of Mount Seiwyn are the 
remains of an abandoned mining prospect. During 
the Klondike rush in 1898-9 many parties went 
in by the overland route from Edmonton, travelling 
up the Peace and Finlay Rivers, and away across 
the wilds to the north. Many never reached the 
Yukon ; how many perished on the road will never 
be known, but some found an attractive proposi- 
tion on the way, and went no farther. Those who 
located the auriferous mass on Mount Seiwyn did 
a lot of work, bringing elaborate assaying plant 
in, but that plant is all that is left now ; the 
prospect never paid— it was one of the many white 
elephants scattered all over British Columbia. 

A magnificent view of this end of the Pass is 
obtained from even a little way up the mountain, 
but the atmosphere is very hazy on account of 
forest fires throughout the country, and our view 
is limited on that account. 

On the opposite bank is a limestone mountain 
with a large cavern near the top, known as " Hole- 
in-the-Wall Mountain/' On the river bank at the 
base of this we formed a cache and left some 
provisions for the use of my two companions on 
their return journey ; for they are coming back 
up-stream, and it is no use carrying things all the 
way down and then up again— it is hard enough 
work taking a canoe up-stream in any case, without 
carrying any more weight than is absolutely 
necessary. 

The cache is formed either by building a plat- 

14 



210 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

form across the tree boughs ten or twelve feet 
from the ground, and placing the goods on this, 
well covered over, or else by hanging them in sacks 
at a sufficient height from the ground to be out 
of reach of bear. In either case it is impossible 
to be quite safe from that persevering and ubiquitous 
pest, the wood -rat ; nothing but canned goods are 
safe from that, as we found later on. 

* * H: * * 

The passage through the Pass is one of the finest 
parts of the trip. One day there will be excursion 
steamers taking sight -seers up as far as the foot 
of the rapids, possibly past them, for a liberal 
use of dynamite may make a channel even through 
both the Finlay and Parle Pas Rapids. The trip 
is far grander than anything on the Rhine or the 
Elbe. This will surely be one of the most famous 
tourist resorts in the West ; one can imagine the 
Mount Selwyn Hotel thronged with visitors from 
all parts of the continent ! 

The Parle Pas Rapids are not quite so furious 
as the Finlay — there is a channel of a sort along 
the left bank— but their great danger lies in the 
fact that they give no warning ; you do not hear 
their roar until you are close upon them, hence 
the name Rapide qui ne Parle pas (" The rapid 
which does not speak"). 

We camp above the rapids, and examine them 
in the evening. In the morning we manage to 
line the canoe all the way down, only portaging 
the most valuable part of our dunnage as a pre- 
caution. Then we paddle down -stream all the rest 
of the day between rounded foot-hills which rise 
to a height of one to two thousand feet above 



THE PEACE RIVER 211 

the river, for the rapids mark the end of the 
mountains. 

The river is not swift here, and numerous eddies 
and backwashes greatly retard our progress, so that 
it is late in the evening before we have covered 
the forty -five miles to the head of the Canon of the 
Mountain of Rocks, as the Peace River Canon is 
called. At one place the river widens out to a 
couple of miles in width, but it is generally three 
to four hundred yards wide. 

There has once been a great lake here, the 
progress of the river being barred by a mountain 
chain, but a deep canon has been cut through this, 
over twenty miles long, with a fall of 250 feet 
in that distance. The first nine miles is between 
vertical walls, three hundred feet high in places, 
then comes an interval of comparatively open 
country, and below that about eight miles more of 
canon, not quite so deep as the upper part. 

When the river is in Hood it must be a sight 
lor the gods to see the mighty torrent raging down 
between those walls ; the water at the canon head 
rises to a height of forty feet above its present 
level. 

But, high water or low, no boat has ever passed 
through the canon ; if a canoe drifts into it, nothing 
but matchwood comes out at the other end. 

There are a few places where it is possible 
to scramble down into the bottom of the canon, 
and, in the present very low state of the water, 
we can walk for miles along the rock ledges and 
coarse gravel beaches in the bottom. 

At one place two little islands stand in the middle 
of the stream, with vertical sides, theii lops densely 



212 



THE CALL OF THE WEST 



covered with spruce and fir. A scene of strange 
fascination, those two islets — or I should say three, 
for there is a smaller one, almost bare, just below- 
holding their own with the mighty torrent rushing 
past them, the cliff on the far side rising sheer 
three hundred feet. The tall fir-trees down there 
on the islands look like little toy trees out of a 
Noah's Ark ! 



At the canon head we cache our stuff, and take 
what we want for a few days at a time, packing 
it on our backs— grub, cooking apparatus, instru- 
ments, and our blankets and tent. During our 
absence the wood -rats are busy ; they have a special 
predilection for leather, and invariably gnaw straps 
or belts in two, spoil one boot out of each pair, 
and do all the damage they can in a given time. 
They also break into as many different sacks as 
possible, and take a nibble at everything— beans, 
rice, dried fruits, candles. 

My geological investigations necessitate following 
some of the tributary creeks for a number of miles. 
Travelling is not always easy. One comes to a fall 
of twenty or thirty feet, and cannot get up except 
by retracing one's steps for half a mile, clambering 
up the side of the gully, which may be three or 
four hundred feet deep, and making a way through 
the timber, across ravines and through dense brush 
in places, until some place is discovered where it 
is possible to descend into the gully above the fall. 
Perhaps after getting nearly down into the bottom 
we come to a vertical drop off of fifty feet, and 
have to clamber up again and look for another 
place to make the descent. 



THE PEACE RIVER 213 

The first time we return to the canon head we 
have the luck to meet a settler from Hudson's Hope 
who owns a number of packhorses, so we make 
arrangements for the transport of our dunnage 
across the portage when we have finished at this 
end. It is a fairly good pack trail, and only fourteen 
miles across, the river making a detour of twenty- 
seven miles between this and the Hope. 

On the day fixed we meet the settler, who is 
accompanied by his klooch, a picturesque-looking 
copper-faced lady riding astride a mule and smoking 
a corncob pipe. But she strongly objects to the 
camera. 

Hudson's Hope consists of two pairs of log build- 
ings, belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company and 
Revillon Freres respectively, but neither occupied 
at the moment. The Indians are all away hunting, 
and the factors are sometimes withdrawn from some 
of the smaller posts during the ofF season. A few 
settlers have taken up land here within the last 
couple of years, and, although there is a good bit of 
clearing to do anywhere on the north side of the 
river, they have been industrious and have already 
the tidy beginnings of ranches. On the south side 
of the river the llal valley bottom extends back for 
a couple of miles, a splendid lownsite, which has 
already been seized upon by speculators, a number of 
whom have ' squatted " on land and built log cabins, 
remaining on it long enough to fulfil the legal 
i requirements for a homestead, for this is in the 
" Dominion Block," where settlers can get land free 
! by complying with the requirements. A number of 
fine sites have been taken up along the lower part 
of the canon, and these will make magnificent 



214 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

residential locations when there really is a city here. 
It has already been re -christened Canon City, the 
old name, Hudson's Hope, not being considered 
sufficiently classy. 

From here down the river is navigable for 
550 miles, to the Vermilion Falls away 
down towards the northern boundary of Alberta, 
and it is conceivable that grain may in future 
be shipped up the river from all the great lower 
Peace River country as far as here, and thence 
by rail to the Pacific Coast. Canon City is certainly 
in an important position, being at the head of a 
stretch of 550 miles of navigable river pass- 
ing through a land which will before many 
years have passed be literally " flowing with milk 
and honey." There are moreover extensive deposits 
of excellent coal in the neighbourhood. It is not 
impossible that the Finlay and Parle Pas Rapids 
majy be rendered navigable, and the narrow and 
shallow portions of the Crooked and Pack Rivers 
widened and dredged so as to form a continuous 
waterway from the head of the canon to Summit 
Lake, a distance of three hundred miles. 

Greater things than this have been done else- 
where ; who knows what developments will take 
place here during the next hundred years? We 
will not live to see it, but one day Canon City 
may rank among the foremost cities of the Great 
West. 

In imagination I see this place a hundred years 
hence ; a beautiful city spreads out over the valley, 
rich in architectural beauty, for the day of the 
hideous sky-scraper is over, and the monotonous, 
interminable, rectangular block s3 T stem has also dis- 






THE PEACE RIVER 215 

appeared, the streets being laid out in a way that 
takes advantage of the natural configuration of the 
ground, parks and gardens being a prominent 
feature. To the east are numerous great factories, 
for the immense power of the water in the canon 
has been harnessed. The coal-mines on Johnstone 
Creek, twelve miles away, supply half the prairie 
provinces. Steamers ply busily on both the lower 
and the upper stretches of the river, and railways 
radiate from here in all directions ; the Peace 
River country is a network of railway lines, 
which collect the harvests and bring the grain 
tio the point of shipment. Electric cars convey, the 
tourists to the brink of the cafion, and they can see 
all its wonders for ten cents, passing on the 
way the beautiful residences dotted along the 
lower canon. The fine hotel at the foot of. Mount 
Selwyn is a favourite resort for a summer holiday 
or a week-end jaunt. A non-slop aeroplane runs 
daily to Winnipeg, another to Chicago, and another 
to Vancouver, besides those which stop at inter- 
mediate 1 points. To Prince George, formerly called 
Fort George, there is a frequent and rapid service. 
There are many other large cities in this northern 
country, and the rivalry between Canon City and 
Dun vegan is great. 

* * * 

But we must return from these dreams to the 
present. There are two steamers now running on 
the river, one belonging to the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany, and the other to the "Diamond P," the 
company which owns the flour-mills at Vermilion. 
We are told that the former is expected to make 
one more trip up to Hudson's Hope about the middle 



216 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

of the month (August). It has been making three 
or four trips a season in recent years. So I arrange 
to be ready for it ; that will greatly simplify the 
problem of getting out from here. 

We make one more trip out for four days, taking 
two packhorses. That is much better than packing 
the things on our backs, and there is a trail for 
about twelve miles in the direction we want to go. 
The trail is pretty good, but the horses frequently 
stumble over roots, and sometimes they step right 
on a hornets' nest, when there is liable to be trouble ! 

The flat valley bottom, and many patches among 
the hills around the lower part of the canon, consist 
of beautiful meadow-land, dotted with small poplars 
and birches ; long grass, breast high very often, 
beautiful flowers, cranberries in profusion — a de- 
lightful country, like one vast park. On the high 
ground beyond the valley, which is from seven 
hundred to a thousand feet deep, from here on right 
down into x\lberta, there is a prairie — beautiful, end- 
less, rolling prairie, the country upon which all eyes 
are now turned as the country of the future. The 
prairies of the United States, of Manitoba, Sas- 
katchewan and Southern Alberta are becoming 
gradually filled up, and people are already beginning 
to look farther afield. This vast country alone 
remains in North America, in very truth the Last 
Great West. 

And the climate, what of that? There is an im- 
pression that away up here in the North the climate 
must be very severe. But it is no worse than in 
the present settled areas, for the isothermal lines 
bend northwards as the Rocky Mountains are 
approached, and the Peace River corresponds 







I'l U 1 KIYI \< i \\n\ 




THE SIDE CHEEKS HAVE DEEP RAVINES TOO. 



To lacj p. 216. 



THE PEACE RIVER 217 

roughly to Southern Manitoba in climate. It is 
well known that the finest wheal in the world is 
the Manitoba Hard, a variety which has been pro- 
duced by growing wheat as near to the Northern 
limit of its cultivation as possible, and this has been 
grown experimentally with great success on the 
Peace River. 

Away down at Vermilion, it is true, the crop is 
very often a failure, but there is a vast area of 
country much farther south than that. The worst 
thing is not the cold, but the fear of insufficient 
rain ; it may happen that in exceptionally dry years 
such as this there may be a drought. That is the 
only drawback, and it is one which this country 
shares with many others which are thriving wheat 
producers. 

* * * * * 

The middle of August has come and gone, but 
there is no sign of I he steamer. We are back in 
camp on the south bank of the river opposite the 
Hope. Some of the squatters, whose homesteads 
have been surveyed, and who have received their 
certificates from the surveyor, are going down the 
river on raits. With luck they will traverse 
the 210 miles to Peace River Crossing in 
five or six days. It is cheaper than the steamer, 
but not cpiite so comfortable. There is no danger, 
however, for any one at all familiar with river 
navigation ; it is not like the Fraser between Fort 
George and Quesnel ! 

Gus is busy baking a " grindstone/' That is the 
kind of bread we have been using ever since leaving 
McLeod. A fire is allowed to burn for three or 
four hours, so as to heat the ground well, then some 



218 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

dough is made with baking-powder, placed in one 
gold pan and covered over with another. The 
remains of the fire are scraped away, and a hole 
dug in the hot ground, in which the gold-pans are 
buried, the embers being scraped back over them. 
After an hour or so a loaf of very palatable bread 
is produced, which from its shape is universally 
known as a " grindstone." It is better than 
bannocks, being lighter, and one can make much 
more at a time, but when one is in a hurry a ban- 
nock made in the frying-pan before the fire is 
the thing. 

Meanwhile Williamson and I paddle across to 
where a raft is being loaded to start down in the 
evening. A black speck appears round a bend down 
the river. It is getting larger and moving dis- 
tinctly. All field glasses are brought into requisition, 
and it is seen to be a canoe, and a figure is walking 
alongside on the shore. As it comes nearer we dis- 
tinguish a man sitting in the canoe, an Indian ; 
the other is lining her up. 

Great excitement prevails ; conjectures are rife 
as to who the arrival can be. At last he is here, 
and turns out to be the mail -carrier from Fort 
St. John, forty-five miles down the river, the head- 
quarters of the Peace River District of British 
Columbia. 

There is no news of the steamer ; he doesn't 
think she will come up again this season beyond 
St. John. He has brought the mail overland to 
St. John from Beaver Lodge, to which point it had 
been brought from Edson, on the Grand Trunk 
Pacific, a fearful journey over muskeg country. 

He is starting back after supper, and, in view of 






THE PEACE RIVER 219 

the uncertainty of the steamer, I arrange to travel 
down with him to St. John, so 1 hastily return to 
camp and pack up my things. The tent I leave with 
the others, taking only a kybosh, or mosquito -proof 
shelter, to go over my hlankets. 

Then I bid farewell to my two companions, with 
great regret, as our time together has been very 
pleasant, and it makes all the difference in the world 
on a trip in the wilds when you have congenial 
companions. But Gus has to get back to Stuart 
Lake, and one man cannot travel up the river alone, 
so Williamson will accompany him as far as 
McLeod, and then make the trip up the Crooked 
River by himself. 

* • * 

So at seven o'clock we starl oil'. Four miles down 
we pass through Hells Gate, a poini where two 
rocks hem in the river, but not a very alarming 

place in spile of its name. Then we camp at dusk. 
It is fine and tents are not needed. We have none 
in any ease. The next day we drift lazily down- 
stream. There is much singing 1 , hut little paddling, 
for why should you paddle when the stream will 
carry you? The Indian has little idea oi the value 
of lime. 

The mail -carrier speaks excellent English, and 
tells me a lot about the objects of interest we pass. 
Presently he produces a newspaper of quarto size 
and peruses it carefully. It is written in Cree, for 
which language an alphabet has been invented, with 
strange and weird letters, some like ours, some like 
Russian, some entirely new, to represent the extra- 
ordinary sounds occurring in that language, which 
is the lingua franca of the country from the Rockies 



220 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

to Hudson's Bay, as the artificial trade jargon known 
as Chinook is throughout the Pacific slope. 

As we approach St. John there are a few settlers' 
cabins along the bank, for people are coming into 
this country already. At one place is an exception- 
ally well-built log house, and, walking along the 
bank in front is a girl ; she can't be more than 
sixteen. That is the house of a young American 
rancher from Dakota, and the girl is his sister. 
His grandmother is also there ; she is over eighty, 
and a lady of independent means, who could live in 
comfort back East if she liked, but she prefers a 
pioneering life with her grandchildren. That is 
the kind of people that make a country ! • 

In the afternoon St. John is reached. This 
metropolis of the Peace River District consists of 
a Hudson's Bay post, a Revillon post, a North -West 
Mounted Police station, at the moment unoccupied, 
one rancher's cabin, and a few Indian teepees. 

All the Indians throughout this country are 
nomadic ; they have no fixed place of abode. In 
the summer they hunt and fish ; in the winter 
they trap. 

The Hudson's Bay Company's factor kindly places 
at my disposal a little shack in which to have my 
meals, but for sleeping I prefer the open, putting 
up the kybosh over my blankets in case of rain. 
The mail -carrier has to go off to Beaver Lodge 
again next week, so that he could not take me down 
the river, and I am not sufficiently expert with a 
canoe to go alone, and all the Indians are away 
hunting, so I am forced to wait with patience for 
the steamer, which may arrive any day now. The 
rancher offers to build me a raft, and I contemplate 



THE PEACE RIVER 221 

that means of conveyance, but give up the idea, as 
in some places there are several channels, and I 
might take the wrong channel and come to a bar 
which I could not get across, which would mean 
going back up-stream perhaps for a mile or more, 
and that would be very laborious single-handed, 
if possible at all. 

***** 

The effects of the dry summer are more evident 
here than up among the fool -hills ; the prairie 
has a dried -up appearance. There is a good crop 
of wild hay, however, which is harvested every 
year. Potatoes are grown in quantity in the vicinity 
of the settlement, and in the garden attached to 
the Hudson's Bay post there are lots of vegetables, 
and even some healthy -looking tobacco plants. 
These, of course, are only for experiment, to see 
how they will grow. Rut tobacco is actually grown 
for use at Lesser Slave Luke. 

The manager of the Revillon Freres post has a 
young bear for a pet, quite quiet and playful, but 
when it gets older he intends to shoot it ! He is 
also the postmaster, and in the Dead Letter Depart- 
ment are some curiosities. One letter was addressed 
to the secretary of the Golf Club at St. John 
B.C., where there are just three white men ! 
No doubt a mistake for St. John, N.B., on the other 
side of the continent— such a difference do two little 
letters make. 

From the prairie, seven hundred feet above the 
river, 1 watch for the steamer. On the second day 
I see something moving, a patch of smoke fifteen 
miles down the river, and fix my binoculars on it. 
Yes, it certainly is getting bigger, and that is surely 



222 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

something black just coming round that bend in the 
river. At last I shall be able to get on ! I wonder 
whether she will go up to the Hope or turn back 
from here ; if she goes up there it v/ill mean at 
least another full day's waiting here. 

Again I look ; that black patch doesn't seem 
have moved much ; in fact, I believe it is still 
exactly the same place as when I first observ 
it. Repeated observations, prolonged over half 
hour, establish beyond a doubt that the black object 
is a fixture, and not the steamer at all. The patch 
of smoke, whatever it was, has disappeared, and 
I must resign myself to a further indefinite period 
of waiting. 

On returning to the post I see a tent not h 
from my kybosh, and a number of horses. It h 
the Indian agent, who has been away up the Ha? 
River country getting the Indians to sign the treaty, 
for there are still some tribes who have not sign( 
their allegiance to the British Crown, which insures 
their being looked after by the representatives of 
that Crown, and never allowed to starve in a bad 
season. He has a pack train, about a dozen horses, 
and is going across to the Pine River country t< 
the south. 

One day I come in and find the whole population 
of the place collected on the river bank, very much 
excited over something. It is a large brown bear 
that has come down to drink on the opposite side 
of the river, but he is not accustomed to so many 
spectators, and moves off before any rifle can be 
got out. 

* * * * * 

After four days of waiting I begin to reconsider 



THE PEACE RIVER 223 

the raft proposition. The stage leaves Peace River 
Crossing every Thursday, and if I miss the next one 
I shall probably have to wait there a week. Then 
Mr. Godsell, the manager of the Revillon post, thinks 
he can get me an Indian boy to go down as far 
as Dun vegan, and ultimately Yi-hea, the boy who 
had accompanied the mail-carrier up to Hudson's 
Hope, is engaged to start off the next morning. He 
has a caricature of a face, and an absolutely 
unlimited appetite. The extent of his English voca- 
bulary is limited to the two expressions " good " 
and " all right," and my knowledge of the Beaver 
language is confined to the word miahsin, which 
means the same thing, so that all our arrangements 
have to be made through the help of Mr. Godsell, 
who speaks both Beaver and Cree fluently. Yi-hea 
agrees to a salary of a dollar and a hall a day, and 
says that he has all the necessary cooking and table 
utensils for the journey, but he cannot be persuaded 
to agree to start before eight o'clock in the morning. 
He owes nine dollars to Revillon's, so, with his 
consent, I pay three dollars on account toward 
that. 

How is he going to get back from Dun vegan? 

It is 120 miles down -stream, and he could not 

bring up a canoe alone if he had one. He 

cannot come back by steamer, as he will have 

I no money in the world except the dollar and 

a half balance that he will get from me after 

| the three days' trip, so he will have to foot 

1 it, unless there happens to be a party coming 

! up that he can join. I begin to calculate that I 

will have to pay him a week's wages for the 

return trip, besides finding his food ! But no, the 



I! 



224 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

Dunvegan Indians are a superior lot to those 
here, and he prefers to stay down there for a 
while ! 

So I am in luck as far as expense goes, but what 
he gets is as much as he is worth. 

Meanwhile, I have bought a canoe for fifteen 
dollars— a cranky one, but the best available. Yi- 
hea doesn't think much of it, and wants me to 
buy his father's, which is miahsin, but he is too 
late, the other is already bought and paid for. 

The one settler, Mr. Wood, is very hospitable ; 
he has done a lot of work clearing his land, and 
is expecting his partner in when the steamer comes. 
Meanwhile, he is raising a quantity of oats and 
all kinds of vegetables on the ground attached to 
the police-station. He insists on my taking a sack 
of new potatoes with me, which materially helps 
my fare on the way down. 

***** 

Eight o'clock i in the morning arrives, but no 
Yi-hea. His father returned from a hunting trip 
last night, having killed a bear, and Yi-hea, having 
gorged himself, is now sound asleep, and, when 
roused, wants to get out of his engagement, the juicy 
bear being more attractive than even the large sum 
of money in view. The way they eat the flesh is 
simply to cut it in chunks and hold each piece 
to the fire until it is roasted on the outside, the 
inside remaining almost raw. 

Mr. Godsell is up to their ways, and informs him 
that I am a policeman, and that by putting his mark 
to the receipt for the three dollars, he has engaged 
himself to go, and will be liable to be locked up 
if he gives any trouble, by all of which he is duly 



THE PEACE RIVER 225 

impressed, and with many sighs turns his back on 
the paternal teepee and the succulent bear. 

All this I only learn afterwards, the conversation 
being quite unintelligible to me, but I must 
remember to act up to my character as a police- 
man. 

At last everything is loaded into the canoe, and 
we get off about ten o'clock. 

Yi-hea doesn't see any sense in paddling down- 
stream ; the current will carry us down, so why 
exert oneself uselessly? The idea thai time can 
have any value whatever has never entered his head. 
Time and again I make him start paddling, but 
after fifteen or twenty strokes he relapses into 
inactivity, finding that his whole energy is required 
to steer the canoe. So, as I want to reach the 
Crossing on the fourth day. I do nearly all the 
paddling myself. Yi-hea expends a vast amount 
of energy, however, in the rendering of songs, which 
are no doubt very beautiful when yon understand 
the Beaver Language, but there seems to be a great 
deal of repetition in them, and at times it develops 
into a mere lung exercise, enough to frighten away 
any living creature within hall a mile ! 

Now and then he points out a lynx or some other 
animal on the shore, or draws my attention to some 
natural feature, explaining all about it in a voluble 
flow of language, which is unfortunately lost on 
me ; but I reply in English, and we have quite 
a lively conversation, neither of us having the 
remotest idea what the other is talking about ! 

Midday arrives, and I choose a nice-looking spot 
where we stop for lunch. Then it transpires that 
Yi-hea's sole luggage, besides his blankets, consists 

15 



226 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

of a cup, saucer, and spoon, no knife or fork, no 
plate, no frying-pan ! 

So I have perforce to share mine with him ; I 
give him my plate and eat out of the frying-pan 
myself, not wishing to cook my food in it after 
he has eaten off it ! He gets my knife and fork, 
and I keep the spoon, as I take no meat. Before 
starting I had boiled a kettleful of rice, so now 
I have first to boil the potatoes in the other kettle 
and then make the tea in it ; being short of utensils, 
some scheming is necessa^. Then I fry some beans 
and bacon for Yi-hea, turn them out on the plate, 
and, after cleaning out the frying-pan, do some 
more beans for myself in butter. I don't trust 
Yi-hea to do any of the cooking ! 

Yi-hea would like a nap after lunch, but I want 
to get on, so we pack up and proceed, and the 
afternoon passes in the same way as the morning. 
In places there are large islands, and the river 
divides into three or four channels, but the water 
is so low that in many of these it is not 
deep enough for a canoe all the way, bars extending 
right across them. It is here that Yi-hea's 
knowledge of the river comes in useful ; he raises 
himself on his knees and gazes intently ahead, 
finally pronouncing on the right course to be 
followed. Sometimes a channel narrows down 
suddenly and the converging water forms big waves, 
threatening to swamp the canoe. As long as one 
keeps on the comb of the water it is all right, 
but where there is a sharp turn that is not always 
easy. When she runs down swiftly in turbulent 
waters Yi-hea leans back and laughs ; there is 
indeed a wonderful fascination about the move- 



THE PEACE RIVER 227 

ment, sitting in a crazy little shell and being carried 
along at an alarming rate by the rushing current ! 
But over the greater part of the distance the 
water is dead, and in order to make any progress 
it is necessary to paddle steadily. In this I get 
little help from Yi-hea, so I keep on paddling until 
dusk has fallen, refusing to be persuaded by him 
to camp at this or that spot, which is miahsin. At 
last it is getting too nearly dark to continue, and 
I look out for a suitable place, but there is none 
in sight ; both banks are sleep and densely limbered. 
So we have to go on for another couple of miles, 
when we come to a passable place, and lay out 
our blankets. Yi-hea soon has a fire made, upon 
which I cook the supper. By that time it is quite 
dark, and we soon turn in. I don't know whether 
we are in Brilish Columbia or Alberta now ; we 
must be somewhere near the boundary. 

***** 

At 5.30 a.m. 1 wake and shout lo Yi-hea to get 
up, but he is tightly rolled up in his blanket and 
does not stir. Then 1 throw pebbles at him. After 
a few minutes he rolls over and grins, then closes 
his eyes again. I throw more pebbles, and finally, 
get up and pull his blanket off him, upon which 
he has no choice but to gel up. That is not a 
very elaborate process, as he has taken off nothing 
but his boots, and washing is a superfluous luxury, 
so the fire is soon made, and we have breakfast 
and get off by half -past seven. 

The next day passes in the same way. The 
river is in a deep valley, the ground on either side 
rising to a height of seven hundred to a thousand 
feet above us, sometimes fifteen hundred feet ; the 



228 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

bottom of the valley is narrow, timbered with 
Cottonwood and poplar ; on the higher levels are 
birch and spruce. 

As the river sweeps round on its southward bend 
some fine scenery is passed through. The river 
itself varies between a quarter and three-quarters 
of a mile in width. 

It is late again when we camp, and the best 
place to be found is on a mud flat which is 
covered when the water is high. The mud is full 
of boulders, but the surface is smooth, although 
hard. It is quite dry, as it is long since the 
water was up over it. The underbrush is far too 
dense to allow of a space being cleared on the 
bank above, and it is getting dark, so we make the 
best of it. 

The hard ground is not so bad after all, and 
we are soon asleep. 

But about 2.30 a.m. I wake up to find it raining 
hard, and there is no shelter, so I tuck mj'self 
under the blanket and try to get to sleep again. 
The rain keeps on, and presently I feel a little 
trickle down inside the blanket. Soon there is quite 
a pool inside. After an hour or so the rain slackens 
off, and I fall asleep again, only to wake up to 
find the blanket wet all over, and the downpour 
harder than ever. 

At last it gets light and I look round to see 
how Yi-hea has fared. Presently he rolls over and 
grins, but a very mournful grin ; he has had a 
wetting too. About half -past six the rain ceases, 
and we get up. Yi-hea doesn't need any urging 
to get up this time ; it is too uncomfortable in the 
wet blanket. 







1 1 *"^^ 




in dson's bay co. i u roR'a housi \i fort st. john. 

(The tobacco plants are seen below the end windows.) 




TELEGRAPH OFI-ICK, GROUARD. 



To face p. 228. 



THE PEACE RIVER 229 

During the morning it clears up, and we have 
another fine day. 

Now we come to a great bar which extends ail 
across the river, except for a channel in which 
there is quite a fall, and the water is far 
too rough for a canoe, so we go down inside the 
bar for about three-quarters of a mile. Then we 
come aground, and have to get out and wade, 
dragging the canoe across the bar, a distance of 
some fifty yards, in which the water is only from 
one to three inches deep. We use the paddles 
as skids to help out, and one gets broken in the 
process, so now there can be no more paddling. 
Yi-hea needs the remaining paddle to steer, and, 
although he splices the broken one, it doesn't last, 
so I have to exercise patience. 

About 12.30, as we round a bend, a settlement 
appears in the distance, and Yi-hea triumphantly 
shouts, " Dunvegan ! " lor such it is. and by one 
o'clock we have arrived. 

The first thing is to go to the Hudson's Bay 
post and ask the news. There I learn that the 
newly constructed railway between Edmonton and 
Athabaska Landing is out of commission, and the 
steamer will probably not conic up the river again 
until that is put right. Then I pay Yi-hea his 
dollar and a half, and ascertain through the 
Hudson's Bay factor that he is satisfied. It is all 
the money he has in the world, and he is 120 
miles from home, but he goes right across to the 
store and buys a pair of kid gloves with it ! There 
are lots of working gloves there, which would have 
been really useful, but he wants something dressy, 
so all his money goes on these gloves, which 



230 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

are absolutely useless to him, as soon as it 
received ! 

The last I see of him he is walking off with a 
friend towards a teepee, wearing his kid gloves 
and looking very pleased with himself. 



About five hundred settlers have come to 
Dunvegan this summer, but they are all on the 
high ground, and no trace of their presence is to 
be seen from the valley. There is a wire-rope 
ferry across the river here, with a high tower on 
each side, giving an appearance of importance to 
the place. 

I have been counting on getting an Indian here 
to pilot me down to the Crossing, which is sixty 
miles farther down, but there is not one to be had, 
and if I could get one it would be a useless 
expense, as I would have to pay for his return 
trip, and the river is perfectly easy from here down, 
so that even a novice like myself could take a 
canoe down without any trouble. 

So at four o'clock I set out on the last lap 
of the Peace River canoe trip by myself, and in 
good time in the evening I select a suitable place 
to camp. My blanket is still soaked, and all I 
can do towards drying it is to spread it out in 
the sun for an hour or so at the midday halt 
each day. 

It is a grand experience travelling alone down 
this mighty river, an insignificant speck on the face 
of the eternally moving waters, the ground rising 
in solemn grandeur to a height of eight hundred 
feet on either side. Not a sound is heard, save 



THE PEACE RIVER 231 

the eternal swirl of the water rushing down on its 
perpetual journey to the great ocean away to the 
north, and even this sound is not heard ; the ear is 
attuned to it and one is not aware of any sound 
at all, except when the presence of a bar causes 
the sound to swell to such an extent as to arrest 
the attention. At other times the incessant, mono- 
tonous plash of the water only serves to render 
the silence all the more intense, the eternal silence 
of the wilds, the primeval world. There are animals 
in this country, but without the experienced eye 
of a Yi-hea, one sees none ; one appears to be the 
only living creature in this vast country — in the 
Universe, so it seems. 

Strange thoughts come to one, thoughts which 
are rather feelings than thoughts, which one cannot 
formulate into words, thoughts which haunt one, 
to which one yearns to give expression, but cannot. 
Watching the silent hills, watching the water cease- 
lessly rushing past, as it has done for millions 
of years, and will do for millions more, one is 
brought face to face with Eternity. It is strange 
to think that the same sun which is shining so 
brightly on the sparkling waters is also shining 
at this very moment on Vancouver with its rush 
and bustle of petty human interests. Surely this 
is a different world from that ! All that seems 
so far away, so unreal ; here we are in Eternity, 
in Reality. How utterly paltry and insignificant 
dollars and real estate seem in comparison with 
This! 

The broad sheet of water moves on its endless 
course. One cannot help wondering where such 
inexhaustible supplies of water come from, and the 



232 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

beautiful lines of Sir Edwin Arnold come into one's 
mind :— 

Stars sweep and question not. This is enough, 
That life and death and joy and woe abide ; 
And cause and sequence, and the course of time, 
And being's ceaseless tide, 

Which, ever changing, runs, linked like a river 

By ripples following ripples, fast or slow — 
The same yet not the same — from far-off fountain 
To where its waters flow 

Into the seas. These steaming to the Sun 

Give the lost wavelets back in cloudy fleece 
To trickle down the hills, and glide again, 
Having no pause or peace. 

The simile forces itself upon one ; the eternal 
movement of the river, ever renewed — the same yet 
not the same — is a fitting symbol of the eternal 
flow of life, and as the one is an integral part 
of a Whole, stupendous beyond all imagining, but 
working all according to a definite plan, with every 
detail worked out, how could any one question 
that the other is also— that what appears to us to 
be such a hopeless tangle of conflicting interests 
is, when seen as a whole, really a regular and 
orderly scheme? 

Such thoughts, and many more, pass through 

one's mind, but any attempt to reduce them 

to words is a failure, and can give no sort of 

an idea of the effect upon the mind of these 

surroundings. 

* * * * * 

By three o'clock on the second day I see a house 
on the left bank, and fields of ripe wheat. From 



THE PEACE RIVER 233 

here on there are settlements nearly all the way 
to the Crossing, the valley spreading out to a con- 
siderable width on the left side. It feels quite 
like civilization once more, and the waving fields 
of golden grain look very beautiful in the bright sun. 

At one point I see a church and a lumber-mill, 
and I land to see what place it is, but there is 
not a soul in sight. A priest comes out of the 
church in the distance, but disappears into a neigh- 
bouring house. It is a Jesuit settlement. 

I have been slacking, thinking that I was nearly 
at the Crossing, but the afternoon is wearing on, 
and it is not in sight yet, so I put more energy 
into it, and paddle hard for five or six miles more. 
Then, at last, a break appears in the high ground 
to the right, and presently I come to the mouth 
of the Smoky River, one of the largest tributaries 
of the Peace, and I know that the Crossing is 
not far off now. And, coming round a bend, as 
dusk is rapidly falling. I see a great tower ahead 
on each side ot the river, which I know to be 
the towers of a wire-rope ferry, and moored 
against the right bank arc two white steamers. 

Striking out across the river towards them, by 
the time I reach the right bank I have been carried 
down a mile and am close to the steamers. Then 
I ground my canoe below the ferry, pull her nose 
up on to the shore, unload all my dunnage, and then 
pull her up on to the beach and make her fast. 
My long canoe trip is over. 

* * * * 

Peace River Crossing is quite 3 lively little settle- 
ment ; it is the gateway of the Peace River. There 
is a " hotel " there, but not quite the kind of 



234 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

institution usually known by that name. It is 
practically a bunk -house with a primitive restaurant 
attached ; there are no bedrooms, only two bunk- 
rooms where you have the privilege of sleeping 
in your own blankets, among an assorted company. 

After sleeping in the fresh air for two months 
that does not seem particularly attractive, so I find 
a clean spot close by and lay out my blanket, 
make a fire, and cook my supper. During the night 
it freezes, but my Hudson's Bay blanket is warm, 
although still wet. 

The weekly stage for Grouard on Lesser Slave 
Lake is going out in the morning, but all six seats 
are booked ! There is, however, another rig, a 
" democrat " as they are called here, leaving at 
the same time, and I am fortunately able to secure 
a seat in it. 

It is only eighty -six miles to Grouard, but the 
journey takes two days and a half, as the same teams 
travel all the way. The road is very poor, especially 
for the last forty miles, where the soil is black and 
soft. Each afternoon we stop early at a road -house, 
where we put up for the night, and as it freezes 
a little each night I am tempted to sleep inside. 
The first afternoon I take advantage of the fire 
in the bunk-room to dry out my blanket ; three 
nights in a wet blanket is enough, but sleeping 
in the open as I have been, I don't even catch 
a cold. We each take our own food, and cook 
it on the stove in the road-house. 

On leaving the Grossing the road climbs up the 
steep side of the valley for a thousand feet, on 
to the general level of the country. It is a pleasant 
country to live in, slightly rolling, and lightly 



THE PEACE RIVER 235 

timbered with birch and poplar. There are some 
shady wooded areas of black pine, and many open 
meadows which look very inviting. 

There are a number of settlers along the road, but 
we are in Alberta now, and settlers turn up their 
noses at " timbered land," on which a few birches 
and poplars vary the monotony of the outlook ; 
they want land which doesn't need any clearing. 
This sounds strange after British Columbia, where 
" timbered land " means virgin forest, with fir, cedar, 
hemlock, pine, and other trees three and four feet 
in diameter. That sort of land really does take 
some clearing, but this ! Fancy calling this timbered 

land ! 

* * * * * 

Grouard is seen a long time before it is reached ; 
we have to skirt all round the north side of Buffalo 
Lake, some five or six miles. There is a settle- 
ment also on the north side, where the Episcopal 
Mission is situated, but the main townsite is near 
the outlet of Buffalo Lake into Lesser Slave Lake, 
where the Catholic Mission and the Hudson's Bay 
Post are. The drv, black soil is terrible to travel 
over, and the long thoroughfare through the settle- 
ment, which can hardly yet be dignified by the 
name of " street/' is six inches deep in black dust. 

There are sidewalks for a little way, and a 
number of frame buildings, including two hotels, 
with real bedrooms this time, and a bank. Along- 
side these flimsy modern buildings are some very 
solid ancient-looking log cabins and houses, one 
of the smaller cabins serving the purpose of 
Government telegraph-office, while another along- 
side has been converted into the Peace River Hotel. 



236 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

It is set back a little way from the street, and a 
notice-board has been set out in front to draw 
the attention of all passers-by to the fact that 
meals can be had for the sum of thirty -five cents. 

Fortunately, there is a steamer leaving Grouard 
for the outside world in the morning. One after- 
noon in Grouard is quite enough ; the black loam 
is a very rich soil, but it is not pleasant to walk 
upon. 

Lesser Slave Lake is only from seven to ten 
miles wide, and very shallow, the navigable channel 
being only some half-mile in width. The shores 
are low and uninteresting. A few miles from 
Grouard the steamer stops an hour to take on 
a supply of cordwood, after which the journey is 
monotonous until Sawridge, at the eastern end of 
the lake, is reached in the evening. Here she ties 
up for the night. 

The sleeping accommodation on board is poor, the 
cabins resembling loose -boxes rather than passenger 
cabins, no bedding of any kind being provided, 
only two bare shelves to sleep upon, each passenger 
using his own blanket. 

Next morning we travel down Lesser Slave River. 
It is narrow and crooked ; frequently at a sharp 
bend the bow of the steamer is bumped into the 
side and prized round with poles. It is the 
only way in which these very sharp turns can be 
negotiated at all. 

N orris Landing is reached at midday. From here 
for sixteen miles there are rapids, and a portage 
has to be made. There is a good wagon-road, 
and a number of wagons transfer the passengers 
and baggage across to Mirror Landing, which is 







TAKING ON CORDWOOD. LESSEN SLAV] RIVER 




INDIAN TEEPEE. NORRIS LANDING 



To face p. 236. 



THE PEACE RIVER 237 

within a mile of the confluence of the Lesser Slave 
River with the Athabaska. The portage takes all 
the afternoon ; it pours with rain most of the way 
across, and we are sitting in the wagons on top 
of our bundles of blankets and dunnage, and try 
to make the best of it. 

At Mirror Landing we find the Northland Echo, 
one of a fleet of steamers running on the Athabaska 
River. They are stern-wheelers, like all river 
steamers in this country, standing very high out of 
the water, the space between the decks being open — 
strange-looking craft. Being on the last wagon, 
I find that there are no berths left when I arrive, 
but ultimately am told thai U will be all right 
and am shown into a spacious cabin with only one 
bed. It is the wireless operator's cabin, and part 
of the apparatus is already installed, but there is 
no operator yet. They arc up lo dale here all right ! 

The Athabaska is a line river, something like 
the Peace ; but the banks are rather more wooded 
here. At one o'clock on the following day 
Athabaska Landing is reached, and it is about time 
they made a decent landing. The mud on the river 
bank after the recent rain is something fearful to 
get over, especially when one has to negotiate a 
sloping bank with a heavy bundle on one's back. 
For there are no porters here to carry ones 
dunnage ! 

This is quite a town, moving picture shows and 
all, and has a very busy appearance ; there are 
actually three streets built. Here I find the suit- 
case I had sent round from Fort George, and am 
able to put on the garb of civilization once more. 



238 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

The railway has been out of commission for three 
weeks, owing to the track sinking in the muskeg, 
tying up all freight traffic going in to the Peace 
and Athabaska Rivers, and accounting for the delay 
of the steamer that should have gone up the Peace 
a fortnight ago. But luck is with me here as it 
was at Grouard ; for the line has been put into 
working order, and has to-day been taken over by 
the Canadian Northern Railway Company from the 
contractors, and the first passenger train is even 
now on its way out. 

At 8 p.m. it arrives, amid great rejoicings ; the 
whole population turns out to welcome it as it 
comes slowly down the slope and pulls up between 
the main street and the river front, where the 
station will be built later on. 

Next day it takes us back to Edmonton, a nine 
hours' journey, although the distance is only 110 
miles. But the train has to go slowly until the track 
has finally settled. All along we see overturned 
freight cars, wheels and axles strewn along on both 
sides. At one place one of the freight cars on 
our train goes off the track, and we are delayed 
for an hour while it is being put on again. The 
muskeg is a hard problem for the railway engineer, 
but the track will be gradually improved, and in 
course of time express trains will be able to travel 
here as they do elsewhere. 

There is no dining car, and we stop an hour at 
Clyde for lunch ; then on again, and in the 
afternoon Edmonton is reached, and we are in 
civilization once more. 






CHAPTER VII 

THE TERMINAL CITY 

Having heard so much about other parts of the 
province, you will no doubt have a certain amount 
of curiosity to hear something about the metropolis 
of the country, the coming Liverpool of Canada. 

In writing about the Island, I drew attention to 
the misapprehension prevalent in the Old Country, 
by which Vancouver City and Vancouver Island 
are mixed up ; people talk as though the great 
Island were a little islet, just oil' the main- 
land, covered by a small town called Yaneouver ! 
As you already know better, 1 need no longer 
insist upon the fad that Vancouver City is on 
the mainland, on the solid North American 
continent. 

Thirty years ago nobody had ever heard of 
the town of Vancouver, B.C., for the simple 
reason that there was no such town. There was, 
and is, a city of the same name in the neighbouring 
State of Washington, but the Terminal City has 
utterly eclipsed its namesake, which has remained 
wrapped in oblivion as far as the outer world is 
concerned, while this metropolis of mushroom 
growth has risen to fame. Although it may fitly 
be described as a city of mushroom growth, the 



240 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

simile ends there ; Vancouver is not a city of a 
day, it has come to stay. 

In the old days the Royal City, New Westminster, 
was the only town on the British Columbian coast, 
and when a trans -continental railway was mooted, 
it was looked upon as the natural terminus, unless, 
indeed, one of the more northerly routes surveyed 
should be chosen. 

But the C.P.R. knew a thing or two, even in 
those prehistoric days, and, instead of humbly 
coming to the Royal City and asking if they might 
enter its sacred precincts, they made straight for 
the head of Burrard Inlet, and boomed the town- 
site of Port Moody for all they were worth. Then, 
when the line was nearly through, it was discovered 
that Port Moody was not a suitable terminal, andl 
the line was extended to the little hamlet of 
Granville, near the Hastings sawmill. 

The name Granville remains as the designation 
of one of the city's finest thoroughfares, but the 
great Terminal City created by the C.P.R. has 
been rechristened after that intrepid navigator and 
explorer, Van Couver. 

Pages and pages might be written — indeed, have 
been written time and time again — about the 
wonderful growth of Vancouver, its trade, its 
shipping, its wealth, its future ; countless rows of 
figures are set forth, showing that no other city in 
the past, present, or future ever has, can, or will 
even distantly approach its glory ; but as for all 
these things, are they not written in the books 
of the Real Estate Merchants of Vancouver? Book- 
lets are issued by the Provincial Government with 



THE TERMINAL CITY 241 

the object of attracting and guiding settlers, which 
describe, among other things, the growth and pros- 
perity of the Terminal City, but the most gorgeous 
are the richly illustrated productions of the Real 
Estate Merchants, which set forth in glowing terms, 
calculated to convince the most sceptical, the glories 
of Vancouver, and the special virtues of the 
particular subdivision advertised. 

So I am not going to burden you with any 
statistics describing the city in cold figures, but 
will try and give you some sort of an impression 
of what kind of a place it is to live in. 

* * iff * ♦ 

Vancouver should be approached from the sea ; 
the approach by train is not impressive, but the 
unfolding view as one enters the harbour is a never- 
failing source of delight. Point Atkinson on the 
left, Point Grey on the right, we steam up into the 
wide mouth of Burrard Inlet. Far away on our 
right we see the clearings, and can distinguish the 
houses dotted about on the great peninsula of Point 
Grey. On our left we pass the rapidly growing 
suburb of West Vancouver. 

Straight ahead is the peninsula of Stanley Park, 
right in the middle of the Inlet, its dark forest 
trees standing out clear and distinct. To the right 
ot it is the broad expanse of English Bay, the 
mouth of False Creek, which one would naturally 
take to be the entrance to make for. We can 
just distinguish the pier and beach at English Bay, 
and on the far side of False Creek we see Kitsilano 
beach with its pavilion. 

But we avoid this broad and attractive expanse 
ot water, and instead make for the narrow entrance 

16 



242 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

to the left of Stanley Park. Now we are close up, 
and see the wonderful Siwash Rock standing up 
twenty feet high on the shore below the cliff, a round 
pillar of rock, surmounted by a small fir-tree, 
gnarled and twisted. 

Sweeping on, we come to Prospect Point, and 
enter the Narrows, through which the water rushes 
furiously. On our left is the flat land of the north 
shore, sloping gradually up to the foot of the 
mountains. Opposite us is the Indian Mission 
Settlement at the mouth of Capilano Creek, and, 
if the tide is low, we can see, extending towards 
us across the mud, the great pipe which brings 
Vancouver's water supply, that delicious, sparkling 
nectar that comes straight from the mountains a 
few miles away. 

If the tide is falling we go slowly ; the whole 
bulk of the water from the North Arm is rushing 
through this bottle-neck. But if the tide is on the 
rise we rush through in great style. On our 
left North Vancouver opens up before our view, 
stretching away up the slope towards the ever 
present mountains. Standing out prominently, 
along the water front, its two yellow wooden spires 
gleaming in the sun, is the Roman Catholic church 
of the Indian reservation. 

But our attention is called to the south side now. 
Sweeping past Brockton Point, we emerge from the 
Narrows into the placid waters of Burrard Inlet, 
two miles and a half wide, and on our right we 
now first behold the city of Vancouver. And what 
a different city it is from what it was a few years 
ago ! On the highest point, dominating everything, 
rises the white mass of the Vancouver Block with 




INl.fcT, I 




Ml N \ 



!'. H*. 



J HE TERMINAL CITY 243 

its great clock tower, visible for miles. Down below 
is the great tower of the World Building, which 
claims to be the highest building in the British 
Empire, bu! loses much in impressiveness on 
account of its poor situation. 

All over the place are skyscrapers, fortunately 
limited to a height of 120 feet by a wise by-law 
that was passed after the permits had been granted 
for the two blocks mentioned to be built to a greater 
height ; and in the West End, enormous apartment 
blocks. The whole aspect of the city has altogether 
changed within the last t- w years. Along the 
water-front, wharves, warehous gns of thriving 

comme 

But we haven't got long to contemplate the 
prospect, for in a few minui side 

the C.P.R. wharf, and disembarking. 

* * * * * 

On arrivi ner by train or steamer you an 

landing by t who 

take your I Checks, and the address to which 

you want the ba >ent. relieving yOU Of any 

further responsibility, <> thai you ilk or t 

ar home in peace. There ar v cabi in 

the city, but nobody ever seems to use them. There 
taxis also, bul very rew oome to meet tin- trains 

or boats. There is always a long lt)W of hotel 
buses, and all the hotels B arlv always full. 

Tin H ancouver Is the most swagger one. 

hut it is nothing like the " Empress at \ [ctoria, 
although also a C.PjR, institution. The original 

building has been added to so much that it has 

been entirely absorbed by the new wings, which 
form a large an I \ erj imp 



244 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

Close by is the new Court House, quite an artistic 
building, almost the only really elegant public 
building in the city. 

There are two fine streets, Granville and Hastings, 
(the word " street " is usually omitted when 
referring to a street by name out here), and several 
others which will be very fine business thorough- 
fares later on. In laying out the city, it was 
evidently intended to make the business centre at 
the crossing of Hastings and Main (formerly West-< 
minster Avenue), where the City Hall is situated. 
But business has gathered round the C.P.R. Depot 
and the Post Office, three-quarters of a mile farther 
west, and this is the focus of activity, and is likely 
to remain so for many years to come, in spite of 
the superior location of the other centre. 

When decorated with flags, etc., on occasions of 
rejoicing, the streets present a very gay appearance. 
On the occasion of the visit of H.R.H. the Duke 
of Connaught in 1912, a number of triumphal 
arches were erected by various public bodies and 
foreign colonies in the city, some of which were 
really very beautiful. 

At night the store windows are very bright ; in 
fact, the greater portion of the street illumination 
is supplied by these and the street signs. Most of 
the latter are either intermittent or continually 
changing in shape and colour, having a somewhat 
trying effect on the eyes, but being very effective 
as advertisements and adding a certain amount 
of liveliness to the scene. 

In the residential sections the lighting is poor, 
an arc lamp generally being placed at each street 
intersection and the intervening distances of 150 



THE TERMINAL CITY 245 

to 200 yards being left in darkness. On a moon- 
less night it is sometimes exceedingly dark, 
especially where there are shade trees, as along 
Georgia, the finest street in the West End. It is 
usual when returning home late from theatres or 
dances to carry as little as possible on one in the 
way of loose cash or valuables, as " hold-ups " are 
not infrequent, more particularly for a short period 
each winter, when a number of " thugs M from 
across the line, having made Seattle too hot for 
them, come over and practise their calling in 
Vancouver. A solitary pedestrian in a residential 
district late at night is always liable to meet one 
of these gentry, and find himself gazing into the 
barrel of a revolver, when there is no alternative 
but to put his hands up and submit lo his poekets 
being searched. 

And it is not only at night that they practise ; 
there arc somelimes epidemics ol purse-.snalching 
in the West End : ladies are relieved ol' their vanity 
bags and purses in the middle of the afternoon 
in the most Fashionable parts ol' the town ! This 

generally, bid not always, occurs during foggy 
weather, the thick fog affording cover for the 
malefactors, who make good their escape before 

there is any chance of raising an alarm. That 
inexorable decree of fashion which says t hat ladies 
are not lo wear pockets, but must carry every- 
thing in their hands, is very helpful lo the purse- 
snatcher. 

Somelimes the " thugs " go in for more daring 
exploits ; street cars have been held up, one man 
wielding the revolver while another relieves the 
passengers ol their valuables. On one occasion 



246 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

a restaurant in the heart of the city was the scene 
of a daring hold-up in the middle of the day. The 
lady cashier found herself confronted by the 
business end of a revolver, and the till was emptied 
before any one realized what was going on. By 
the time the alarm was raised, the daring robber 
had disappeared in the foggy street ! 

Banks have occasionally been robbed in a very 
bold manner ; but that is, of course, an exploit 
which has to be planned in great detail beforehand, 
and needs a number of accomplices, and the risks 
incurred are so enormous that it is not attempted 
very frequently. 

But I must not go on describing such things, or 
you will think that Vancouver is a dangerous place 
to live in. The possibility of being held up lends 
a certain spice of excitement to life, and makes 
one realize that one actually is in the wild and 
woolly West ; but the real hold-up season is very 
short, the police soon get on their tracks, and the 
" thug's " are either caught or find it convenient 
to disappear back across the border. The whole 
thing is treated rather as a joke by the ordinary 
individual. 

Another thing which brings home to one the fact 
that one is not in the Old Country is the frequency 
of fires in the city. Scarcely a day passes without 
the peculiar longi-drawn -out whistle and the clang 
of the bell being heard somewhere in the town, 
announcing the approach of a fire-engine. Upon 
these sounds being heard the streets are rapidly 
cleared, for the motors which carry the fire-engines, 
hose, ladders, fire-escapes, chemical engines, etc., 



THE TERMINAL CITY 247 

travel at a great speed. There are a number of 
fire-engines stationed at various points all over 
the city, and the way. in which they are handled 
is marvellous ; the Vancouver Fire Brigade is 
considered one of the very finest in the world. 
The frequency of fires is, of course, due to the fact 
that, outside of the business section and the large 
apartment blocks in the West End. practically every 
house is built of wood. 

There are some very fine streets in the residential 
districts, and in places boulevards have been laid 
out, which will in the course of time be magnificent. 
But what strikes one forcibly is the fact thai there 
is not a single open square in the city. It seems 
extraordinary that in such a great and thriving 
city there should be no breathing space where one 
can go for a few minutes. Of course there is 
always Stanley Park, but thai is so far out. it is 
no use going there unless you have an hour or 

two to spare. 

• i * • * 

But what a place Stanley Park is when you do 
get there ! Xo wonder it is Tamed throughout the 
West. A peninsula, literally almost an island, with 
seven miles of shore line, covered with primeval 
forest, mostly just as it has been for a million 
years, joined by a narrow strip of land to a great 
City ! A splendid auto-road runs all round it, 
now following the shore, again ascending through 
the heart of the forest among magnificent cedars, 
firs, hemlocks, pines, and a luxuriant undergrowth ; 
then we come to Prospect Point, and. leaving the 
auto, walk up to the edge of the cliff, securely 
railed in, and gaze out across the Narrows at the 



248 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

glorious panorama of forest and mountain on the 
north side of Burrard Inlet. Or, turning to the 
left, if it is a clear day, we can see the mountains 
of Vancouver Island, fifty miles away. 

If it is rough we stand for a time in silence, 
fascinated by the sight of the waves dashing against 
the rocks below us. It is a great sight to watch 
the tide racing through the Narrows, to see one of 
the elegant C.P.R. Princesses flying past on the 
tide, or to watch the frantic efforts of some small 
craft trying to buck the current. 

But if you want to enjoy Stanley Park, you 
must go on foot and explore some of the countless 
trails which intersect it in all directions. We may 
wander over new ground day after day for months, 
discovering unexpected beauties each day. Now 
we pass along a corduroy trail over a piece of 
swampy ground, immense moss -covered logs lying 
all around, ferns growing in luxuriance. Frequently 
we see great trees, two or three feet in diameter, 
growing apparently out of a large fallen log, but 
a closer inspection reveals the roots twined round 
it. Then we come out suddenly on the little lake, 
reeds growing all round the edges, and sit for 
a while in the shade on one of the rustic 
benches, watching the sparkle of the sun on 
the water. 

Or again we come out on to the auto -road, and 
see the great dead stub, the famous " Big Tree," 
but resist the enticements of the photographer 
stationed there to have our photos taken standing 
in the aperture in the base of the tree. 

Or we may picnic in the forest above the Siwash 
Rock, and scramble down the cliff to the narrow 








iMI BIG IKl I-. M \\i I N PARK. 



. 



THE TERMINAL CITY 249 

shelf of shore at the base of that remarkable pillar. 
But we cannot climb it. 

If we leave the trails we may easily get lost ; 
the growth is so thick in places that the sun cannot 
penetrate into the forest gloom ; there is a legend 
about a certain white stone— but 3 T ou must read 
that in Pauline .Johnson's delightful little book of 
legends of Vancouver. 

In the summer we can go to Second Beach and 
have a swim. But it is not much of a beach ; 
there arc still a lot of rocks about, although many 
have been removed. That is one thing that one 
misses here; there is no good heaeh. Those at 
English Bay and Kilsilauo are better, but they are 
poor in comparison wilh what one is used to in the 

Old Country. To gel anything oi* that sort one 

must go OUt to the open coasl. 

On Sundays we come oul to listen to the band. 

In the intervals we take a walk round among the 
animals and birds ; there is quite a good beginning 
Of a zoological garden near the main entranee ot 

the park : the bears are particular ravourites. On 

a line Sunday afternoon the people Dock out there 

in thousands, and a motley erowd it is too. all the 
smart set rubbing shoulders with the most appalling 
Creatures With shock heads and smooth, shaved 

necks, continually chewing gum ; then we 

Swedes. Italians, Hindoos, .laps. Chinese -all pass 
in review as \\r lazily recline on the grass and 

watch them go by. 

One of the most beautiful sights in this delightful 
spot is that of sunset viewed across the bay at Second 
Beach. The outline of the rocks, the trees above, 
the peaceful sea, the land stretching away to Point 



250 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

Atkinson on the right, and Point Grey still dimly 
seen on the left, a dark grey sky above, shot with 
streaks of crimson, the glorious colours of the setting 
sun over the sea, seen between the trees — words 
fail one in the attempt to describe such a scene - 
it must be seen to be appreciated. 

And then the park by moonlight on a summer's 
night ! But perhaps the most fascinating of all 
is the appearance of the park in winter, when the 
trees are decked in white, sparkling in the sun. 
There is not much snow in Vancouver, it seldom 
remains long on the ground, but when thera is a 
fall you should see the people flocking out to Stanley 
Park with their kodaks ! And no wonder, for the 
familiar scenes have taken on an entirely new 
aspect, one of fairy -like beauty, and the crisp, dry 
air has such an exhilarating effect after the usual 
muggy wet of a Vancouver winter. 

* * * * * 

Some people at home seem to think that winter 
in Vancouver is like that in Winnipeg, and it comes 
quite as a shock to learn that it is really much 
more like that in the West of England, very wet, 
but not cold. There is usually one cold snap for 
a couple of weeks, but the thermometer very rarely 
approaches anywhere towards zero. On the whole 
the climate of Vancouver is not at all unlike that 
of Cardiff, except that it is certainty very much 
finer in summer. 

But in summer one alwa3^s wants to leave the 
city ; confinement in an office or a house in such 
glorious weather is more than irksome ; one longs 
to be away "up-country." It is very nice to come 
back to Vancouver after a trip into the interior or 



THE TERMINAL CITY 251 

up the coast, but I always feel sorry for those whose 
occupations condemn them to remain in the city 
all through the summer. 

Both offices and private houses are, however, very 
different from those in a large city in the Old 
Country. There are still a considerable number 
of old-fashioned office blocks, hut the vast majority 
are now reinforced concrete skyscrapers, with 
numerous lifts. Large windows, water laid on every- 
where, every room bright and comfortable. And 
the office furniture is all of the most modern type. 
everything up to date. 

And the houses ; the dilference here is still more 

striking. There are no monotonous rows of bou 
with a irvv square fed of garden in front and a 
little more behind. Every house stands by itself. 

in its own ground, with garden all round, and 

this garden is not fenced off From the road. There 

is nothing to prevent you from walking across the 

lawn and picking the Dowers, of which there are 

such brilliant displays in front of most hou 
those of the poor as well as those of Ihe rich. 

As l mentioned before, the houses are all built 

Of wood . some have stone haseinen Is. hul the 

private bouses built of stone In Vancouver could. 1 
believe, be counted <»n the fingers of one band. In 
the better districts there are scarci l\ any two hou 

alike . some of them are exceedingly pleasing in 

appearance, the sides, us well us the roof, being 

OQvered with shingles, stained brown or dark green. 

It seems almost a pity to build such beautiful struc- 
tures in such an impermanent material as wood. 
The West laid, extending down to English Bay 

and Stanley Park, us. .1 to he the most classy resi- 



252 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

dential section, but a great many of the private 
houses have been removed and great apartment 
blocks built in their place, some very attractive - 
looking, others hideous. 

Sometimes a house is moved bodily. It is rather 
startling at first, on going round a corner, to see 
a house where we expected to see the open street ! 
They are moved by means of a horse, -wind lass, 
with the aid of skids and rollers. Then one occa- 
sionally sees the upper portion of a house cribbed 
up, while the lower portion is removed, and stores 

built in its place. 

* * * * * 

The most fashionable district now is Shaugh- 
nessey Heights, away up on the high ground behind 
Fairview. Nearly all the millionaires live there, 
and there are some beautiful houses, as well as some 
which display more lavishness than taste. The 
houses are larger here than elsewhere, but only a 
few are larger than an ordinary English suburban 
residence, most of the houses in this country being 
considerably smaller. 

From Shaughnessey Heights a magnificent view 
over the city is obtained. One looks down across 
Fairview and False Creek, spanned by three fine 
girder bridges, over the peninsula on which the 
city stands, with its forest of skyscrapers, Stanley 
Park on the left, across Burrard Inlet to North 
Vancouver and the mountains beyond, among which 
one cannot help noticing the twin snow-capped 
peaks of " The Lions " keeping guard over the city. 

These mountains on the north side are one of the 
glories of the place ; only a few miles away, there 
are few parts of Vancouver from which they cannot 



THE TERMINAL CITY 253 

be seen. On a winters afternoon to see the grey 
peaks, the snow crimson in the light of the sinking 
sun, and the rich dark green of the torest below 
is a sight not easily to be forgotten. Surely it is 
worth while pausing and forgetting about real estate 
values for a lew moments in the presence of such 
splendours ! 
Vancouver is a city magnificently situated, among 

some of the most glorious scenery imaginable, and 

vei the possibilities of its situation have to a great 
extent been lost, and everything has been made 
subservient to the worship of the almighty dollar I 

Bui 1 must not be unjust ; Stanley Park has been 

PVed lor the public for e\er. il can never be used 

for building purposes. And now. before il is 

altogether too Late, steps are being taken to beautify 
the city us much as possible. 

Another very fashionable suburb is Point Grey. 
The whole of the land extending onl to the point, 
n miles away, has b< en subdivided, and building 
is going on apace. A Large area has been reserved 
for the i Diversity of British Columbia, which 
promises to be a very fine institution, and has 
certainly a superb location overlooking the straits 

of Georgia. 1 

***** 

The less lashionabh districts are also vn\ 

pleasant, every house being detached, in its own 

den, although in some places, even in the better 

> sections, in order to make the houses as large 

as possible. the\ are built up to within a loot or 

two of tin of the lot on either side, leaving 

vei \ narrow spaces l>« Iween the houses. 

I opened lince the above waa \\ ritt 



254 THE GALL OF THE WEST 

But generally they are bright and cheerful, 
although small. This applies to all the houses 
occupied by the working classes too ; in fact, a 
working man generally owns the house in which he 
lives, and the lot on which it stands^ having invested 
his savings in this way, instead of continuing to 
have to pay a high rent. 

The East End of the city is not very attractive, it 
is true, until you get some distance out. But what 
a paradise in comparison with the dingy monotony 
of the endless rows of brick houses occupied by the 
same class in Old Country towns ! Slums are un- 
known in Vancouver, and the city is determined 
that they shall always remain unknown. Let us 
hope that they will succeed ! 

If we take a street car up to Mount Pleasant, 
and from there take one of the suburban cars with 
strange devices that carry us off mile after mile 
through the unknown regions of South Vancouver, 
we begin to get an idea of the area covered by the 
city, or rather by the municipalities adjacent to 
it. Some of the car-lines take us down nearly 
to the Fraser, five miles away ; others go off more to 
the east. 

Or we can go out due east in a " Camion Ball " 
car, past Hastings Park to North Burnaby. Where 
a short while ago one saw nothing but virgin forest, 
one finds populous suburbs now. 

We have the choice of three car -lines to New 
Westminster, and there is an excellent service. By 
the original direct route past Central Park the dis- 
tance is twelve miles ; a sligi/ly longer route passes 
beautiful Burnaby Lake, which is fast becoming 
a delightful suburban district, and the third line 





WiiKLD Bl II .l»i\i. 



in im [NDI IN B! 51 RVATION, 
NORTH VANCOI 




MOVING v HOU81 IN fHE^WESI 






THE TERMINAL CITY 255 

goes across to the Fraser at Eburne, and thence 
follows up the river. 

***** 

The city of New Westminster is not very interest- 
ing ; it consists chiefly of one fine broad avenue, a 
small cathedral, a prison, and a lunatic asylum, 
standing in beautiful grounds. There is a fine steel 
bridge over the Fraser, which carries both the Great 
Northern Railway and the road. The Royal City 
is a pleasant place to live in, however ; it has some 
very nice residential districts overlooking the river. 

The whole peninsula between the Fraser and 
Burrard Inlet, extending from New Westminster to 
Point Grey, will soon be one continuous town. It 
is all subdivided already ; the proud old Royal 
City, while still retaining its independence, is fast 
becoming absorbed in Greater Vancouver. 

A couple of miles farther up the Fraser, on the 
south side, is Port Mann, tbe advertised terminus 
and town site of the Canadian Northern Pacific 
Railway. It was much boomed a few years ago as 
the terminus of that transcontinental line, but of 
course they couldn't afford to ignore Vancouver, 
and. although they will no doubt have their shops, 
etc., at Port Mann, they have since made arrange- 
ments to tunnel under Mount Pleasant and come 
out at the head of False Creek, which is being 
filled in right down to Westminster Bridge. On 
this area a magnificent union depot is to be built, 
which will also be shared by the Great Northern and 
Northern Pacific, and probably other railways later 
on. There will be room for extensive warehouses, 
sidings, and many other things on Ihis area. 

The Great Northern already runs iulo Vancouver. 



256 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

but its station— well, the less said about it the better. 
It is located in Chinatown, and is, if possible, worse 
than the E. and N. depot in Victoria. 

* $ iff * * 

Chinatown is a great institution ; it is quite 
interesting to see the Chinese stores with all kinds 
of weird -looking eatables in them. There is a 
temple there, although you wouldn't think it if you 
didn't know it was there, for it is to all external 
appearance just one house in a row, also a 
theatre, and most extraordinary are the perform- 
ances which take place in it. The Pekin Restaurant 
is quite an attractive -looking place, with green 
window-boxes, and shrubs in large pots at the 
entrance. But I have never ventured inside ; one 
never knows what wonderful dishes might not be 
served there. 

Naturally, nearly all the Celestials here belong 
to the lower classes, shopkeepers or labourers, but 
occasionally one sees a richly dressed lady walking 
along the street with a couple of children, all wear- 
ing beautifully worked silk coats and wide trousers ; 
blue and black seem to be the favourite colours, 
and sometimes rich patterns are embroidered on 
them in brilliant hues, but always very tastefully. 
They wear close-fitting skull caps, and those horrible 
little wooden shoes that pinch the feet so cruelly. 1 

There are many Japanese in the city too ; the}' 
live in another quarter. No Orientals are looked 
upon with favour by the white population, especially 
the labouring classes ; they can make a living where 
a white man would starve, and all their savings 
go right off to China or Japan, as the case may be ; 
they spend next to nothing in this country. If the 
1 These have now been abolished by law in China. 



THE TERMINAL CITY 257 

banks could disclose the amounts the}' remit to the 
Orient every week, it would be a startling revelation. 

But there is a remarkable difference between the 
two races. John Chinaman trades on credit ; he 
pays all his debts scrupulously on Chinese New 
Years Day which, by the way, has now been 
altered so as to coincide with ours); but Mr. Jap 
has to pay cash down for everything he buys ; he 
is not trusted farther than he is seen. 

Japanese " boys." many of whom are over forty, 
are extensively employed as waiters in the hotels 
and clubs : the Chinese are mostly cooks, domestic 

servants, gardeners, and in the Laundry business. 

II* you are lucky enough to live within the sphere 

of influence of a good Celestial Launderer, you can 
get your washing done most excellently and very 
cheaply. Many people, however, refuse to employ 
Oriental labour on principle preferring to put up 
with the shortcomings of the steam laundries. 

Although there :uv many Of these, they are all 

controlled by a combine, so that there is not much 
to choose between them. 

The servant problem is a very serious one out 
here, and in this respect the Chinese are a real boon. 
It is practically impossible to get a while girl as 
a domestic servant, except a young girl who may give 

you what lime she can spire from her attendance 

ai school it you offer her sufficient inducements 

and submit to her terms. The ultra-rich can import 

servants periodically direct from England, but 

before they have been out here wry long they go 
off to work in offices or stores, finding that much 
more congenial, and even if they resist this, they 
soon ^o oil' and get married. 

17 



258 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

I once met a young couple who had come out 
from England accompanied by an elderly domestic 
who had been in the family for generations— that 
is, her forbears had. I spoke of the servant problem 
to them, and they congratulated themselves on their 
foresight in solving that problem so effectually. 
Three months later I went out to dine with them, 
and found my hostess in dismay ; the faithful old 
retainer had that very day gone off to get married, 
and, to add insult to injury, she had gone without 
giving notice ! 

Out here ladies who were used to three or four 
servants at home generally have to do without any. 
They soon get into the way of doing their own 
cooking, and washing up after meals. But it is 
a terrible tie when there are young children. The 
mother can never go out in the evening unless 
some kind neighbour takes care of the baby. So 
neighbours have to work it turn about. 

Those who can afford it can get a Chinaman to 
do the cooking and housework, and most excellent 
servants they make, but ordinary folks generally 
take a share in one. That is to say, he goes round 
a number of houses, spending a morning or after- 
noon at each place so many times a week, doing 
the " chores " — i.e. scrubbing floors, chopping wood, 
and such heavy work. 

***** 

No wonder, under these circumstances, that so 
many people are taking to flats now ! Long before 
an apartment block in the West End is half built 
every suite has been taken. Many of these suites 
are delightful, but the rooms are usually very small. 
And they are very expensive. There are many 



THE TERMINAL CITY 259 

apartment blocks farther afield now, but these are 
mostly built of wood. Parts of Kitsilano are 
becoming quite unrecognizable now with all these 
great blocks going up. 

Many people are adopting the American plan of 
living in a flat and having their meals out. It 
saves an immense lot of trouble, but it destroys 
the home Life. 

There are lots of restaurants here to suit all 
purses ; you can have a meal for $2.~)() or more, 
according to your fancy, and listen to the orchestra 
at one of the swagger places, or you can have an 
excellent meal for two hits 25 cents in a less pre- 
tentious hut quite clean and attractive place. Quick- 
Lunch counters abound, where you sit on a high 
stool and have things almost thrown into your 
mouth, rushing hack to your office In ten or (il'teen 

minutes. 

Or you can 140 to a cafeteria, and take Up a 
tray, which you slide along a counter all round 
the room, helping yourself as you go. or being 
rapidly served as you pass opposite the hot joints 

or vegetables. When you have go! all you want, 

a lady at the end of the counter casls her eye 

for an instant over your tray, and then punches 
a ticket lor you stating the e\acl amount you owe. 
But you don't pay until you leave. You carry 

your tray across to a table, where you sil down 
and have your meal in peace, Listening to a very 

good orchestra. There are no waiters except the 
men who clear away the trays, etc.. that are done 
with. Occasionally you see a cheechahko ' come in 
and sit down at a table, vainly calling for a winter. 

1 Greenhorn, 



260 THE CALL" OF THE WEST 

Nobody takes the least notice, until finally the 
stranger " catches on " and gets up to take his 
place in the queue leading up to the pile of trays. 
All these places are fearfully crowded during the 
busy hours, especially the quick -lunch counters. 
Unlike Old Country feeding-places, these do a great 
business at breakfast-time. The busiest time for 
lunch is from 12 to 1, and for dinner from 6 to 
7 p.m. Afternoon tea is not a generally recog- 
nized meal outside of the clubs and ladies' social 
gatherings, but during recent years a number of 
tea-shops have been opened, which are well 
patronized, of course by Old Country people. 
* * *■ * * 

There are lots of amusements in Vancouver, 
theatres, concerts, varieties, and so on. There 
used frequently to be something good on at 
the Opera House ; many of the leading lights 
of the English and American stages would come. 
But a few years ago the lease expired, and 
the Opera House has been taken over as a 
variety theatre. A new one is to be built, 
but in the meantime there is no place where 
a good company can come, for neither of the 
other theatres is large enough. There are two 
Varieties which are quite decent, and several 
inferior ones, besides innumerable picture shows. 
The term " cinema " is not used here. Some 
of these picture shows are very fine ; the 
" Dominion " is a magnificent place, and has quite 
a good orchestra besides showing really good films. 

During the winter and spring months there are 
lots of dances, mostly subscription ones. Dancing 
is rather different from what it is in the Old 






2 



THE TERMINAL CITY 261 

Country ; you go a few times round in one direction 
and then reverse ; nobody ever thinks of going all 
round the room without reversing. The skating rink 
is a very popular institution. It is very rarely that 
there is any open-air skating here, and until the 
rink was opened there was no opportunity for ice 
skating at all. This also is somewhat different from 
the practice over there. There are only two ways 
of skating in vogue, straight forward and waltzing. 
You cannot go round on the outside cd^c without 
getting in people's way. and one very seldom sees 
any figure skating. There are, however, some very 
fine figure skaters among the Canadians. Hockey 
is played a great deal, and a fast game is most 
Interesting to watch. The term " hockey " alw 
means the game on the ice over here ; the game 
on dry land is practically unknown. 

Football and cricket are played a good deal, hut 
the great spectacular games are hasehall and 
LaCTOSSe. These would botfa he splendid sanies ii 
they were always played cleanly, hut un fortunately 
the true sporting spirit is very often conspicuous 
by its absence, and fouls are OCCUITing incessantly. 
The horrible practice Of " rooting " jars very much 
upon any one used to Old (lounlry ways. It 
consists in the spectators jeering and making 
Uncomplimentary remarks, catcalls, and all sorts of 
horrihle noises in order to put a man oil" his game, 
at the moment when he most needs to have all 
his wits about him. It is an abominable thing, 

hut it is always done hy the partisans ol* holh sides 
alike, and is considered a legitimate practice and 
an integral part of the game. 

In summer there are hand concerts in Stanley 



262 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

Park, Kitsilano, and English Bay. The pierrots 
on the beach at the last-named place are a great 
attraction ; enormous crowds gather there on fine 
summer evenings. 

It is a great place for swimming and boating, 
but one has to be careful on account of the currents. 
Old Joe, the dusky professor of the natatorial art, 
is constantly on duty there, and many a life has he 
saved. He is adored by the children who frequent 
the beach. 

Sailing is a prominent feature here. Innumerable 
small yachts and gasolene launches are to be seen 
outside Coal Harbour, near the main entrance to 
Stanley Park. Here the Yacht Club and the Rowing 
Club have their respective headquarters. You can 
sail out through the Narrows, right out past Point 
Atkinson, and in to explore the beauties of Howe 
Sound, or visit a summer resort on Bowen Island, 
or even go farther up the coast, if you are venture- 
some. But, except in very fine weather, it is safer 
for very small craft to stick to inland waters, and 
go: up the Inlet, through the Second Narrows, and 
up into the North Arm, where you can sail up 
the eighteen miles to Indian River amid the 
most glorious mountain scenery. Many summer 
bungalows are situated on the North Arm ; it is 
so convenient for any one possessing a gasolene 
launch to go in each morning to the city, and 
return to the delights of the fragrant forest and 
refreshing water in the cool of the evening. The 
"water of the North Arm is dark and deep ; there are 
delightful little rocky coves and sandy beaches 
where one can enjoy a swim. 

It is generally a couple of miles wide, but near 



THE TERMINAL CITY 263 

the mouth it is narrower, and a small island in the 
middle leaves two passages of about half a mile 
each at one place. There is a project of bridging 
it here, and running a railway along the north 
shore of Burrard Inlet, connecting with the main 
line of the C.P.R. near Port Moody. But a far 
more feasible scheme is the much discussed Second 
Narrows Bridge, which will no doubt be built 
before many years have passed. The Pacific Great 
Eastern Railway, coming down from Fort George, 
will reach the coast at Newport, at the head of 
Howe Sound, but will certainly be continued from 
there round the coast to North Vancouver, and it 
is not likely that the Terminal City will allow its 
northern suburb to possess the terminus of a great 
trans-continental railway ; the Second Narrows 
Bridge will enable the line to run right into 
Vancouver. 

I refer to the P..G.E. as a trans -continental Line, 
for it is understood thai it is to be taken over 
by the Grand Trunk Pacific, thus enabling that line 
to run to the western metropolis as well as to Prince 
Rupert. There will, moreover, probably be other 
railways before very Long, approaching Vancouver 

from the north*. 

***** 

North Vancouver is undoubtedly one of the city's 

most pleasant suburbs. It is reached by a Terry, 
Which crosses the two miles and a half of inter- 
vening water at frequent intervals all day, the fare 
being the very modest sum of a nickel, or less if 

you gel a number of tickets in advance. 

Like the city Itself, it is Laid out on the deadly 
monotonous rectangular block system, which is, 



264 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

however, very convenient when you want to find 
any place. For instance, if you are at 3408 Sixth 
Avenue, W., and you want to go to 1186 Twenty- 
first Avenue, E., you know that you have got to 
go across fourteen intermediate avenues before 
reaching the one you want, and to go forty -five 
blocks along the avenue, thirty-four to reach the 
zero point, and eleven more east from there, for 
a hundred house numbers are allotted to every 
block, even if there is only room for four houses 
in it. There are never, by any chance, a hundred 
houses in a block ; the numbers jump about in 
a way startling to one used to Old Country methods. 
You are further helped by the fact that all the 
odd numbers throughout the city and suburbs are 
on the north and west sides of the streets. 

But, to return from this digression, the great 
advantage of North Vancouver lies in its southern 
aspect. It gets the sun all day, and spring begins 
here several weeks earlier than on the south side 
of the Inlet. The maples and other greenery, which 
are such an attractive feature, put on their spring 
robes while those on the south side are still deep 
in their winter slumbers. In the gardens the 
difference is very marked. 

And from the higher parts of the town, what 
a magnificent view is obtained ! One looks down 
upon the whole of Vancouver, Shaughnessey Heights 
and all. Burrard Inlet, extending away round to 
the left, False Creek, surrounded by the city, and 
the Fraser River away beyond — all are laid out 
like a relief map before us : the Narrows, Stanley 
Park standing up with its tall forest trees, almost 
surrounded by the beautiful blue waters of the 



THE TERMINAL CITY 265 

Inlet ; English Bay beyond, then Kitsilano, and the 
great peninsula of Point Grey, beyond which one 
can see the silver sparkle of the Fraser mouth. 
On a clear day one can see miles away, but not 
in the middle of the day, for then, the sun being 
in the south, it is too hazy in that direction. But 
to gel the best view we must climb to the top of 
Grouse Mountain ; it is quite an easy climb, there 
is a trail all the way up. And it is worth the 
climb simply to drink in the glorious air and revel 
in the view. Away below us like a map lies 
Vancouver, and all the country around. The Fraser 
forms a broad band of Silver r unning down past 
New Westminster to the sea. dividing into two 
branches which surround the great plain of Lulu 
Island. 

Away beyond, sparkling in ihe sun. is Boundary 
Bay, which, reaching up this side of the 19th 

parallel. Cuts off the rwd of Point Koberls lYoni 

the res! of the State of Washington. 

Then Ihe broad expanse of Ihe Straits of Georgia, 
and Ihe dull Islands. Ihe mountains of Vancouver 
Island to the right, and. crowning Ihe whole scene, 
it it is very Clear, we can see the nigged peaks 

of the Olympic Mountains, ninety miles away. 
Looking to the left, we have the rich Fraser 

Valley extending away lip as far as Ihe eye can 

reach. Ihe snow-clad dome of Mount Baker rising 

solitary and majestic in ihe distance. 

Or sometimes, il* Ihe Light is good, we may see 

a Whole range Of peaks in the Cascades, but Mount 
Baker is always by far Ihe most prominent. 

Bui al last we must tear ourselves away from 
the fascinating scene and retrace our steps clown 



266 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

through the forest, emerging finally on to Lonsdale 
Avenue, which we follow down to the car terminus, 
and there if we are lucky we catch a car down 
to the ferry, and so back home. 

***** 

The ascent of Grouse Mountain is a favourite 
Sunday trip, taking lunch with you and spending 
a lazy day basking in the sun on the top. There 
has been talk for some years of a funicular railway 
and a summer hotel, but that has not materialized 
yet. 

But the greatest show place of the north side, 
vying with Stanley Park for the distinction of being 
the greatest show-place in all the surroundings of 
Vancouver, is the famous Capilano Canon. It is 
par excellence the place of pilgrimage on public 
holidays ; on Easter Monday, ,Whit Monday, Empire 
Day and so on, the inhabitants of the city are to 
be seen flocking out in their thousands, armed with 
luncheon-baskets and kodaks. Automobiles galore, 
private and public, cross over on the ferry, and 
whirl their occupants in a few minutes up to the 
Suspension Bridge, or right on to the dam. Extra 
street cars emerge from nowhere, and run out from 
the ferry every few minutes along all three lines, 
every car crowded to its utmost capacity with 
holiday-makers ; the conductor has a fearful time 
squeezing through to collect the fares. 

The Capilano line runs right up now to within 
quite a short distance of the Suspension Bridge ; 
you used to have a mile and a half to walk before 
getting there. At one place the overloaded car 
crosses a trestle bridge over a deep ravine, travelling 
at a great rate and swaying from side to side. .We 




S l-.KMi i.l , CAIMLANO CVNON. 




l. AIMI. INO M IMI-. 



To face p. 266. 



THE TERMINAL CITY. 267 

■ 

cannot see the bridge, only the dizzy drop below ; 
some of the passengers get quite nervous. But we 
get safely to the end of the line at last, and then 
what a relief it is to unpack, for it is really a 
process of unpacking, getting out of that hot mass of 
humanity, so closely packed that one couldn't move 
hand or foot, and the people on the seats were 
nearly smothered. They stream out, one after 
another ; it seems thai at least fifty must have got 
out, and yet the pressure is scarcely relieved at all 
where we are. At last we can move, and. after a 
long struggle, we finally find ourselves on the white, 

dusty load. 

It doesn't sound a particularly attractive way of 
holiday -making, dot-s it*/ Bui what follows is 
worth the discomfort of the journey. 

it is fortunate thai the walk to the Suspension 

Bridge is short, for the dust raised by the autos is 
something appalling. Bui once there our troubles 
arc ended— until we star! to go borne. 

The investment of the sum of ten cents entitles 
us to walk over the famous bridge, which swings 

to such an extent, if you are not \<ry careful, that 

it makes nervous people wish they had decided on 

Lynn Creek instead of C.apilano for their day's 
OUting. Some fools make the bridge sway on 
purpose to frighten their companions, hut such 

people soon L^it told off by the caretaker. 

It is worth while pausing in the middle to 
admire the view; 190 feel below us the little 
Capilano River rushes down, boiling among the 
rocks, for in the spring the snow melting in the 
mountains up above causes the small stream to 
swell to quite a torrent. Beautiful patches of 



268 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

sward alongside the river form ideal picnic grounds. 
These are reached by precipitous trails which have 
been made in some of the " draws " which indent 
the sides of the canon occasionally. 

The country is densely timbered, mostly with 
cedar, and the shingle industry is in full swing 
here. Great cedars are felled and cut up into short 
lengths, which are floated down in a flume to the 
" shingle-mills " below, where they are cut up into 
the shingles which take the place of slates out here. 

Alongside the flume is a plank walk, two planks 
wide, and this is the main highway for pleasure- 
seekers going up through the canon. Sometimes 
the plank walk changes from one side of the 
flume to the other, and we have to step across. 
The flume is about three feet wide at the top, 
and the operation of crossing is always the cause 
of much dismay on the part of the ladies and 
much merriment on the part of their cavaliers. 
Frequently we come to a place where the planks 
are getting rotten, and we have to step gingerly 
over them, one at a time. We may even come to a 
broken plank, for this part of the flume walk is 
not a public thoroughfare, and its upkeep is purely 
a private concern of the owners. In places, where 
there are side ravines to cross, the flume is raised 
up on trestles twenty or thirty feet from the ground. 
With the water rushing madly by in the flume, 
one needs to have a steady head. 

We could have come along on terra firma, for 
there is a trail running up all this part of the 
way, but it is usually very swampy in places, and 
the flume is much more direct. We have occa- 
sionally had a glimpse through the trees of the 



THE TERMINAL CITY 269 

canon, but presently we emerge into the open, 
and behold a scene which amply repays all our 
trouble and discomfort on the way up. 

We are on a rocky bluff. Far below roars the 
river, a sheer drop of two hundred feet. Down- 
stream, the two sides recede for a distance, the 
dense forest extending right down the steep sides 
to the water's edge. But farther down the sides 
close in, and on one side is a vertical, even over- 
hanging, cliff, four hundred feet high. 

The First Canon is a glorious sight, but it is 
surpassed by the Royal Canon, through which 
we are about to ikiss. The pathway now is 
partly cut in the solid rock in the side of an almost 
vertical cliff, and partly formed by a plank walk, 
built on the trestles which support the Hume, 
Clinging to the face of the precipice, and made 
fast to it by means of strong iron bolls. Naturally 
the plank walk is more than two planks wide here, 
and securely fenced. The grey rock rises sheer 

above us. the far side being only a stone's throw 
away. And the green water rushes on below, 

churned up into a seething while mass every few 
yards as it swirls in and out among the great 

grey boulders. In the deep pools we can trace 
the whirling eddies. 
Away down below us we can see a greal log, 

a mighty fores! giant, which has been washed 

down by the spring Hoods and become jammed 
among the rocks. Ahead of us, spanning the 
canon at its upper extremity, is the picturesque 
rustic bridge by which we presently recross to the 
other side. 

From here we can either climb up the steep 



270 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

path to the Canyon View Hotel, where we refresh 
the inner man with an excellent luncheon, and 
afterwards wander out on to the bluff overlooking 
the canon, or, if we have brought grub, we can 
make our way down into the flat bottom of the 
valley above the canon, and find a quiet spot 
where we can sit in the shade on the soft grass 
and watch the incessant rush and tumble of the 
water over the rocks as we partake of our frugal 
repast. 

Or, if we are energetic, we may trudge the 
remaining three miles along the road to the dam 
where Vancouver's water supply is stored. Here 
there is a splendid view down the valley, and also 
the more prosaic attraction, but one not to be 
sniffed at after our long walk, of another excellent 
hotel, at which we can fortify ourselves for the 
five-mile tramp back to the car-line. 

The walk along the road in the forest shade is 
most enjoyable. Delicate wild flowers abound along 
the roadside, glorious maidenhairs, not quite the 
same as the English variety, but equally beautiful, 
and many other sorts of ferns. Now and then a 
blue jay, of gorgeous plumage, flies across in front 
of us. Or a bright scarlet w r oodpecker flits from 
tree to tree, stopping now and then to pick out 
a grub. Chirpy little chipmunks sit on the branches 
and scrutinize us from a safe distance. 

On another occasion we go out to Lynn Creek, 
in the opposite direction from North Vancouver. 
Here there is also a canon, not so majestic in its 
grandeur, but affording a feast of most glorious 
scenery for several miles. It is also reached by 
car from the ferry. There is quite a large suburb 



THE TERMINAL CITY 271 

growing up around the end of the Lynn Creek 

car-line. 

• • • * • 

The British Columbia Electric Railway, or 
B.C.E., as it is generally called, is a great feature 
in Vancouver ; it is the one and only means of 
transit in the city, and between it and its extensive 
suburbs. The network of car lines extends out 
in all directions for miles, passing in places through 
primeval forest, in others past great clearings, where 
we see heaped up the stumps and roots which have 
been taken out to make the ground fit for building. 
These heaps, thirty or forty feet high, are burnt 
after the dry season is over. 

If we go out to a district in which we have not 
been for some time, we find, where there was virgin 
forest a short time ago, an extensive suburb, 
numerous houses, plank sidewalks, street cars, 
perhaps a new suburban line starting at what we 
used to look upon as the vnd of all things, and 
going some miles farther out, through new sub- 
divisions. 

These ear lines are regular railway tracks, of 
standard gauge and laid with heavy rails. And 
the cars are not the little toys familiar in the Old 
Country, but enormous vehicles on bogeys, which 
make such a row as they go along on a paved 
street that you simply cannot hear yourself think 
.when a car is passing. What with the noise of 
the car itself and the clang of the bells, it is not 
good for persons afflicted with nerves to reside 
within a block of a car line, at any rate of one on 
a paved road. 

In the outer suburbs the vast majority of the 



272 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

roads consist practically of the natural surface of 
the ground, so that, even if one has an auto, or can 
afford a taxi, it is not a pleasant mode of locomotion, 
except on the main thoroughfares, once one leaves 
the city proper. After wet weather, the humble 
but useful bicycle ceases to be even a possible 
means of transit in the suburban districts. A 
few years ago the roads in the near-by suburb 
of Kitsilano were in such a state that the city 
tradespeople refused to deliver goods there. The 
place is growing at such a rate that it is a sheer 
impossibility for road-making to keep pace with 
building, but the suburban roads are gradually 
being improved. 

The car service is frequent on most of the lines, 
but still hardly adequate for the needs of the 
populace ; in the morning and evening, when 
people are going to and from business, the crush 
is awful. It is almost time there was an under- 
ground railway constructed ; the car service cannot 
be increased very much without absolute congestion 
in the heart of the city. 

On a Saturday evening every car coming in 
from the suburbs is crowded to its utmost capacity ; 
the whole population of Greater Vancouver comes 
in to walk up and down Granville and Hastings 
Streets ; they go backwards and forwards along 
that portion of these two streets which is most 
brilliantly lit by the store windows and street signs, 
about a mile and a half in all. 

It is a regular parade ; immense crowds walk 
up and down, up and down, all the evening. The 
theatres, the picture shows, the billiard saloons, 
and the other kind of saloons, are all packed, and 



THE TERMINAL CITYi ,273 

still the sidewalks are a dense mass of humanity, 
crawling along. A peculiar amusement, and rather 
a nuisance if you want to get anywhere or buy 
anything on a Saturday evening. 

* * * * * 

The stores are kept open until ten on Saturday 
nights ; it is a shameful thing for the poor attend- 
ants, who work long enough hours without that, 
and are not too well paid. 

There are some very fine stores here. People 
sometimes talk as if Vancouver were an outlandish, 
semi -barbarous place, where it is difficult to get 
any of the comforts of civilization, but as a matter, 
of fact there are few things one cannot get here. 
There are practically no manufactures here yet, 
although these are bound to come before very long, 
so everything has to be imported, and prices are 
consequently high. 

But the stores are well stocked, and most 
attractive ; window-dressing; is a fine art here, as 
in the States. Department stores are a great feature 
out here ; Timothy Eaton has not yet reached so, 
far West as this, but David Spencer does a great 
business in every conceivable line. And there are; 
several others who have blossomed out from one. 
line of business into regular department stores. 
The Hudson's Bay Company's store is one of the 
best. Its original fur trading business is quite a 
secondary matter now; its depots are regular, 
Whiteleys. 

The drug stores are another striking feature 
here. Like the tobacconists, they are allowed toj 
remain open on Sundays, and they take full 
advantage of the privilege. Stationery is a regular 

18 



274 THE CALL OE THE WEST 

sideline in a drug store; every drug store also 
comprises a "soda fountain," or bar, where one 
can get all kinds of fearful and wonderful iced 
drinks, ice-creams and their derivatives, known as 
sundaes, ice-cream sodas, and so on. During the 
hot weather these are very well patronized, and 
are really a great boon. But it is extraordinary 
how the Americans will indulge in ice-creams and 
iced drinks all through the winter. 



* 



The Yankees, of whom there are naturally a 

large number here, are trying to make Vancouver 

into an American city. They are coming in by 

thousands, and spreading American customs. But 

the Canadians will not be bluffed : their ways seem 

very American to an Englishman, and they object 

to being told that they ought to do everything just 

as it is done in the Old Country, but they take 

good care to remain Canadian, and not American. 

5 The population of the city is very mixed ; it 

is an interesting study to watch the people as they 

pass in the street. That well-groomed individual 

coming out of the Bank of Commerce, and getting 

into his auto, is a rich lumber merchant. He 

came out from somewhere back east twenty years 

ago with nothing but what he stood up in. Now 

he lives in a palatial residence, and lords it with the 

best. But he hasn't got an "h" to his name. 

That other prosperous-looking man, on the other 
hand, is obviously a gentleman. He is not really 
so well off as he looks, but manages to make both 
ends meet, and a little over, on his ranch somewhere 
up Chilliwack way, and when in town he is 
always faultlessly attired. The smartly dressed 



■Of 

M 


- 




: 


■;■ '.IT 





I 1-1*1 R BRIDGE , <. M'll AN-' «. \\> >N, 




LYNN CREEK RAPIDS. 



Tu face i>. 274, 



THE TERMINAL CITO 275 

young lady getting out of the street car is a 
stenographer, or, as you would say over there, a 
typist, in a large real estate office. She looks 
charming in the distance, and would still be so 
upon closer inspection, if the incessant contortions 
of her jaws didn't betray the fact that she is chewing 
gum. Those two younger girls are waitresses at 
one of the smaller hotels ; they are recently out 
from Lancashire, and are discussing all sorts of 
plans for the future, being delighted with the high 
wages they get here. 

Then comes an immaculately dressed young man, 
whose every feature proclaims the fad that " I am 
an Englishman, and not one of these ill-bred 
colonials." He turns in to the Post Office, for the 
English mail has arrived, and he is going to take 
his place in the Long queue at one of the " General 
Delivery " wickets. lie is expecting a certain 
registered Letter from home, for he is a M remittance 
mail,'' depending for his livelihood upon what he 
receives from across the water. He has not 
succeeded in getting a position such as he con- 
siders himself lilted lor. and is loo superior to 
take anything else, so now he spends his time 
loafing around his club, vaguely waiting for some- 
thing to turn up. 

There are many of this type here, and they do 
not altogether tend to impress the Canadians with 
the vast superiority of those who happen to be 
born on the other side of the water. 

That lady who just got into the smart electric 
auto, and drove oil* herself, is the wife of one of the 
leading doctors here. She is doing some shopping, 
and, with true Canadian independence, dispenses 



276 THE CALL OE THE WEST 

with a chauffeur. The big man who stepped aside 
to let her pass is a Swedish lumber -jack. He 
cannot speak much English, and his manners are 
somewhat uncouth, but he knows how to behave 
in the presence of a lady, which is more than a 
great many do here. See how he is just as polite 
to that poor old woman as he was to the rich lady. 
vVery different are those two youths who swagger 
along, jostling the passers-by, chewing gum, and 
talking in the crudest of Western accents. They 
think they are as good as anybody, and take care 
that everybody knows it. That is the great fault 
of the way in which children are brought up out 
here, in Western Canada as well as in the States ; 
the spirit of self-reliance and independence is 
instilled into them, but it is done to such an ex- 
cessive extent as to make them precocious and 
impudent, with no respect for anybody. Those 
parents and school-teachers who want their children 
to grow, up refined and with good manners have 
to exert a very close supervision over their 
behaviour in order to counteract this baneful in- 
fluence. But, unfortunately, there is a very large 
proportion of the community which encourages 
such behaviour, under the miserable delusion that 
it indicates strength of character. 

On the far side of the street is a Hindu, looking 
very meek and inoffensive, treated with silent con- 
tempt by most of the " superior race." But he 
holds his head high, although he does get out of 
the way. Look at the medals on his waistcoat ; 
he has rendered valiant service to the Empire of 
which he is a citizen as much as any of the others, 
and more than many, and he finds it hard to be 



THE TERMINAL CITY 277 

treated as an " undesirable alien." The Hindu 
problem is indeed a difficult one j there is a lot 
to be said on both sides. 

Then we see bank clerks ; a Japanese waiter ; 
more stenographers ; an old Si wash klooch l from 
North Vancouver ; a couple of miners down from 
Rossland on a holiday, fine, well-built men, who 
look magnificent in their working clothes, but most 
extraordinary in their ill filling "glad rags." 

That oiry-faced man is a real estate dealer ; he 
is a man to avoid. He has never actually been in 
trouble, but is known to sail very near the wind, 
and many ol* his dealings would not bear looking 
at in the light. Dealing in real estate is the chief 
"industry" oul here, but that is only a phase, 
which must be go! over before the place settles 

down to genuine industries. It is an easy way to 
make money, and. as everybody is anxious to get 
rich quickly with the hast possible amount ol work, 
the shady real estate dealers find lots ol' gullible 
victims. 

Ol' course genuine real estate dealings are quite 
another matter. The dealers are not all sharks, but 
it is like the horse trade : any one in it is suspected 

ol* being a sharper unless he is known to hi* above 

suspicion. 

Wild-cat mining schemes are another favourite 
means ol" extracting money from the gullible public, 

and hundreds ol* Ihem are advertised with wry 
attractive prospectuses describing the golden future 
of a proposition which very likely has no possible 
chance ol* ever paying a cent. .Many sound pro- 
positions are ruined through the inordinate greed 
1 Indian woman. 



278 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

of these money-grabbers. A proposition offered 
at a reasonable price is taken up by a group of 
speculators who have no intention of working it 
themselves, but simply " make a deal " on it, passing 
it on to another group at a considerably advanced 
figure. This process is repeated several times, until 
the proposition, which would have paid well if 
properly handled on a small scale, is so hopelessly 
over-capitalized that it has no possible chance of 
ever paying at all 

One has to be very careful about investing money 
in the West ; it is necessa^ to have personal 
knowledge of the proposition, or of the people 
who are running it, before it is safe to part with 
one's hard-earned cash. Attractive prospectuses 
are to be treated with suspicion. 

But there are lots of safe ways of investing 
money in mining, real estate, and other things, 
and fortunes will always continue to be made out 
here. 

And even if one does not make a pile of money, 
there is a fascination about the country, an en- 
chanting sense of freedom from constraint, such 
that few people, once they have got over the first 
shock and lived here for a time, ever want to go 
back across the water. Many people do not like 
it at first, but it grows upon one unconsciously. 
It frequently happens that people go back to the 
Old Land to settle after a number of years out 
here, looking forward to the comforts over there 
which they have so long missed, but having been 
there a week or two, pack up again and come 
back to British Columbia for good. 



CHAPTER VIII 

DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 

Having decided upon a trip home, the choice of 
a route was an important consideration. Rather 
than go direct, I wanted to go about a bit, and 
see some new places. Wishing to visit friends in 
Los Angeles, I conceived the idea of continuing 
southwards and crossing the continent in Mexico, 
fulfilling my long-cherished desire to visit the 
fascinating capital of thai country. The unsettled 
slate of affairs there, however, finally caused me 
to abandon that plan in favour of going Still farther 
South, and crossing the continent where it can he 
done in two hours, at the same time seeing one 
of the wonders of the world under construction., 
namely, the Panama Canal. 

As the steamers running between San Francisco 
and Panama are primarily freight boats, only 
carrying passengers as a sideline, the dates of 
their arrival and departure are not guaranteed, and 
it was therefore not safe to book beyond Panama. 
So I had to trust to Providence for accommodation 
for the rest of the trip. How Providence abused 
that trust will appear later on. 

The trip from Vancouver to San Francisco was 
uneventful : the night boat to Seattle, a day in the 

279 



280 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

familiar streets of that busy city, then two days 
and three nights on the good ship Governor, where 
there are three berths in each small stateroom, 
one above the other, the lowest one being almost 
on the level of the floor. Every berth was occupied, 
for in winter every one who can spare the money 
and time likes to go South. 

Then, on the third day, about 8 a.m., we enter 
the famous Golden Gate and steam up past 
Alcatraz Island into that magnificent harbour, famed 
throughout the world, San Francisco Bay. 

I must plead guilty to a little disappointment 
at the appearance of the Golden Gate ; I had 
expected something more impressive, more lofty 
heights on each side, but then I suppose one must 
see it from the east at sunset to realize its true 
beauty. 

Passing the Presidio Military Reserve on the 
right, and the site of the Panama Pacific Ex- 
position, as the ship turns round to the right, the 
great city gradually comes into view, an innumer- 
able array of wharves projecting out along miles 
of shoreline, the central point and focus of the 
whole city being the imposing tower of the Ferry 
Building, from whence ferries run at short intervals 
all day to Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, and other 
trans -bay points, for a large portion of the 
business population of " Frisco " lives across the 
bay. 

It seems as if one would never cease turning 
to, the right, for, curiously enough, San Francisco, 
like Cadiz (which it very much resembles in 
geographical situation, but on a larger scale), faces 
due east, so that, after entering the harbour from 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 281 

the west, one has to turn completely round in order 
to approach the wharf. 

* * * * * 

Having only one day in which to see the city, 
I allow myself to be seized upon by one of the 
agents who throng the entrance to the wharf, selling 
tickets for sight-seeing aulos, technically known as 
" rubberneck " cars. In true American style the 
guide describes the various points of interest to 
his victims through a megaphone from the front 
of the car. 

The city is truly wonderful. A lew short years 
after being destroyed by a terrible earthquake and 
a no less terrible fire, a new earthquake and lire- 
proof city has risen on the ruins of the old, a 
striking monument to the indomitable energy and 
pluck ol* the inhabitants ! It is true Unit many 
open spaces still remain in the heart of the city, 
and in a lew places one sees ruins left apparently 

untouched since the fatal day. perhaps as reminders. 

But the open spaces will not he vacant tor Long; 
magnificent buildings are going up on all sides, 
all of reinforced concrete, tin 1 only huilding material 

capable of withstanding an earthquake shock. 

And the Golden Gate Park ! One can hardly gel 
a fail' idea of it by rushing through it from end 
to v\u\ in an auto ; il leaves one with an impression 
of vaslness combined with perfect order mid 
neatness. The main roads through the park, in 
spite of their magnificent vistas, are to my mind, 
however, the least interesting part of it ; one longs 
to wander up some of the side roads and pathways, 
and gel a peep at what lies hidden round the corner ! 
One longs to get away from the almost oppressive 



282 THE CALL OF THE WEST, 

sense of vastness, and find some quiet, homely 
nook. 

Then fifteen minutes at. the Seal Rock, where 
hundreds of seals bask in the sun or flop lazily 
into and out of the water, quite regardless of the 
crowds of rubbernecks watching them from the 
mainland. We are here on the outer side of 
the peninsula, looking out on the broad waters of 
the Pacific. To the left is a vast expanse of beau- 
tiful sandy beach, a veritable bathers' paradise, but 
now deserted, for even in sunny California it is 
too cold for sea bathing in January. 

Back to the city again through miles of handsome 
residential streets ; up hill and down dale, for 
Frisco is a city of hills, and some of them steep 
ones too ; electric cars running everywhere, up and 
down the most appalling gradients ; back to the 
wharf, and our dollar's ride is over, but it was 
a dollar well spent. 

In the afternoon a walk through Chinatown. 
Every city on the Pacific has its Chinatown, and I 
suppose nearly every city in North America too, 
but that of Frisco is world famous as a place of 
dark and mysterious happenings. After the earth- 
quake it was found to be riddled with subterranean 
passages, but these have all been suppressed in 

the rebuilding. 

* « $ * * 

Another day on the briny, and Redondo Beach 
is reached, a popular watering-place and one of 
the ports of Los Angeles, which city is reached 
in an hour and a half by an electric train. 

There is great rivalry between Los Angeles and 
San Francisco, the inhabitants of each declaring 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 283 

that the climate and everything else of their own 
city is ideal, and that of the other very faulty. 
It is amusing how a stranger is collared and 
impressed with these facts on every conceivable 
occasion. 

Los Angeles is like other American cities ; natural 
difficulties form no obstacle ; where a hill is too 
steep to climb, and too high to be graded down, 
it is just tunnelled through. But on the other hand, 
natural features are not taken advantage of as they 
are in Europe ; the monotonous grid -iron system 
of laying out the streets is rigidly adhered to, with 
very few exceptions, whereas, by following the 
natural contours to some extent, a pleasing and 
diversified effect might have been obtained. 

There are many delightful excursions to be made 
from Los Angeles, but my time was too short, and, 
returning to Frisco by a night train, I saw nothing 
of the Golden Stale except these two cities. How 
I very nearly lost my steamer trunk is of no par- 
ticular interest to anybody else, but was of con- 
siderable interest to me at the lime; it was taken 
to the wrong depot at Los Angles, and only turned 

up at the right one four minutes before the departure 

of Hie last train that would land me in Frisco in 

time to catch the San Juan lor Panama. 

» * * * * 

The first call being Mazatlan, in Mexico, the next 
six days afford a welcome rest, devoted to letter- 
writing, reading, and making the acquaintance of 
the other passengers, of whom there are about 
twenty. 

These are mostly Americans, making a pleasure 
trip from San Francisco to New York via Panama. 



284 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

There are also a Spanish wine merchant, on his 
way to Guatemala, a lady, of that city with her son 
and daughter, who are being educated in San 
Francisco, a Japanese, going to take up land near 
Mazatlan, as the conditions in California are 
becoming disagreeable for his countrymen, one 
other Britisher, Captain Talbot, and a nondescript 
American, Fraser, who is interested in rubber, and 
also incidentally in poker. 

Captain Talbot and I played with him two 
evenings, but after that I decided that discretion 
was the better part of valour, and refused to be 
persuaded to join any more in the game. On the 
following night Captain Talbot won back $8 of 
his losses, and tried all he knew to get me to join 
in again and get back some of mine. Next night 
he lost $60, and came to the conclusion that I had 
been the wiser of the two ! 

After four days of calm sea, the weather gradually 
getting warmer, we double Cap San Lucas, the 
extreme point of Lower California, and on the 
following evening we are at the port of Mazatlan, 
and make our first acquaintance with Mexico. At 
least, it is the first for me and a good many of the 
others. This port is guarded by a conical island 
of very imposing appearance, but there is no 
harbour at all, and the water near the shore is 
so shallow that ships have to anchor about two 
miles from the town, all freight being taken to 
and from the ship in lighters . 

After a number of gorgeous officials have been 
on board, and found that all is in order, we are 
permitted to go on shore, which we do in gasolene 
launches, being charged $1, gold, for the round trip. 




I 




8TREE1 SCENE, M \l'i I CO. 




STREE i S( ENE, K mm LCO. 



To lace p. 284. 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 285 

As the Mexican dollar is worth just half an 
American one, 1 and those of the other republics 
have varying values below this, it is necessary, every 
time a price is quoted, to make sure which currency 
is meant, the American being referred to as " gold " 

and the others as " silver." 

***** 

It was a welcome change for me to see a 
picturesque Mexican lown after the monotonous 
regularity of Canadian and American cities. 
Although even here the rectangular block system 
is followed to a large extent, still the picturesque 
houses, with their red-tiled roofs and barricaded 
windows, make a pleasing sight. 

From the sea the town appears to be rich in 
palm-trees, but on walking through the streets one 
at first wonders where all these palms can be ; 
there is not one to be seen, until, on peeping through 
the open doorway ol* some house, a glimpse of the 
patio or courtyard within is gained. For in Mexico, 
as in Spain, the houses lace inwards, not outwards. 
To the streil they present only small windows, 
Shuttered and always protected by iron gratings. 
But on the inside is a bright, sunny court, with 
Dowers, greenery, palms, and often a fountain, and 
it is on to this that the windows of the living rooms 
are turned. To the stranger, however, all this is 
a sealed book ; only a transitory glimpse may now 
and then be obtained. 

The streets are, of course, narrow, but not so 
dirty as I had expected ; the sidewalks are very, 
narrow and very high. 

All the inhabitants are picturesque, the men with 
1 Written in 1913. 



286 THE CALL OE THE WEST 

their enormous straw hats, with conical crowns and 
wide, upturned brims, generally riding on donkeys 
of such diminutive stature that their feet nearly 
touch the ground ; the women, with their wonderful 
dark eyes and bright-coloured shawls, wearing no 
headgear but a brilliantly hued handkerchief. The 
footgear worn by the peasants is very character- 
istic, consisting of sandals formed by a thick piece 
of leather, held to the foot by triple leather thongs 
crossing diagonally over the toes, and others to 
hold the heel. 

Mazatlan, being a large city, possesses a street 
car service, running from the railway -station, two 
miles off, up to the town, and on as far as the 
wharf. The cars are, of course, of the open type, 
and the motive power is furnished by a pair of 
very small mules. 

The cathedral is a fine building, in front of which 
is a large plaza, the greater part of which is taken 
up by a nicely kept garden. The sacred edifice 
serves the twofold purpose of cathedral and wireless 
station, the wires being stretched from the spires 
to the dome at the opposite end of the building I 

As the San Juan remains a whole day at Mazatlan, 
we have plenty of opportunity to take in all the 
sights of the city. This part of the country is 
quiet now, but nine months ago there was a regular 
massacre in these very streets ! 

* * * * * 

Two days more, keeping close to land all the 
time, brings us to Acapulco, a picturesquely situated 
town, rather smaller than Mazatlan, and with no 
railway connection. It was visited by a cyclone a 
month ago, and many buildings are in ruins as a 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 287 

result. One district in the town is inhabited by 
the " natives "—that is, those who are still of pure 
native stock. The Mexicans, who are of all shades 
between pure white and almost pure Indian', keep 
themselves very distinct from the " natives." The 
houses of the latter are very haphazard jumbles 
of adobe walls and patched up roofs ; there doesn't 
seem to be very much distinction between the part 
occupied by the hens and that occupied by the 
human beings. Even the cows, when there are 
any, seem to be on very familiar terms with the 

rest of the family. 

t » • • • 

Another two days and we are at Salina Cruz, 
the terminus of the Tehuantepec Railway. In spite 

of the time Of year, it has been very hot ever 

since Leaving Aeapulco, and the appearance of Salina 

Cruz is not inviting. Eor some hundreds of miles 
the roast has been dry and sandy, and this is a 
town built on sand. There is always a certain 
amount <>1 wind, and it is necessary to wear coloured 
gles, as much to protect one's eyes from the 
sand as I'rom the glare of the sun. 

At this port there are extensive wharves, where 
the ships transfer their freight directly to and from 
the railway cars. 

There is only one other wharf between San 
Francisco and Panama ; at all the other ports the 
freight is carried by the primitive system of 
Lighters. 

Nobody is sorry to leave this city of wind and 
dust, and continue our journey down the coast, 
now in an easterly direction. The character of 
the coast soon changes again, and now consists of 



288 THE GALL OF THE WEST 

a flat belt of very, fertile ground from twenty to 
fifty miles in width, with a sudden rise into 
mountainous country beyond, some peaks standing 
out very prominently, fifty, seventy, or even a 
hundred miles inland. This character continues all 
along the coast of Guatemala and Salvador. 

Twelve hours from Salina Cruz brings us to the 
first Guatemalan port, Ocos, which consists of a 
number of thatched huts. In response to a signal 
from the shore, the captain takes the ship on to 
Champerico, another thatched village, two and a 
half hours' steaming farther on, which we reach 
at 6 p.m. There is a considerable amount of 
cargo, mostly coffee, to take on here, and the ship 
has to go back to Ocos to take some on there, 
before proceeding to San Jose de Guatemala, so 
that we have five days before us between these 
three ports. As there is railway communication 
from both Champerico and San Jose to Guatemala 
city, most of us decide to take the trip up to the 
capital city and spend the time in seeing something 
of the country. 

So on the following morning, each carrying a 
small grip, and looking like a party of commercial 
travellers, we descend into a lighter, where we sit 
down on anything capable of being sat upon, and 
hold on hard, for the lighter is tossed about like 
a cockle-shell as she is rowed in to the pier. On 
reaching this we are lifted in a basket by a crane, 
and landed safely on the pier. Here we find our- 
selves in a shed, a sort of bonded warehouse, and 
before being allowed to leave it, we are requested 
to pay the sum of 50 cents, gold, each for the 
privilege of landing in the lighter. All of us pay it 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 289 

meekly except Fraser. who declares that he is not 
going to be imposed upon in that way. But the 
diminutive official, apparently quite used to such 
procedure, without the least excitement, gives 
instructions to the non-commissioned officer in 
charge of some half-dozen equally diminutive, coffee- 
coloured soldiers, not to let that senor pass. So 
Fraser, not feeling equal to tackling the Guatemalan 
army single-handed, has to climb down ignomini- 
ously and pay like the rest ! We are then installed 
in a number of trolleys, and conveyed by a tram- 
way along the pier to the land, and up to the 
custom-house. 

Here we have no trouble, finding the oilicials 
most reasonable, being chiefly on the look-out lor 
firearms. Before Leaving the custom-house we 
have all to sign our names on a piece of paper 
produced for the purpose. 

The next thing is t€ change BOtne money into the 
local currency. This il done by the American 
Consul next door, and we are initialed into the 
mysteries of the fearful and wonderful currency 

of the Republic of Guatemala. The rate of exchange 

at the moment is $1N..">(). duatemalan, to $1, gold, 
fn changing from gold to silver, or rather to paper, 

they give Si 8, and in changing back I hey take 
$19, but one always expects to be done in changing 
money. The currency of this republic is only by 
courtesy referred to as silver ; il is really paper, 
and exceedingly dirty paper at that. 

The last silver coinage minted for the republic 
some years ago could not be paid for, and it was 
accordingly taken over by the neighbouring republic 
of El Salvador, so that in that country one meets 

19 



290 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

with coins bearing the name of the Republic of 
Guatemala as often as those of El Salvador itself, 
whereas in Guatemala no silver coinage is ever seen, 
for all former issues seem either to be hoarded up 
in the banks or to have left the country also. 

There are, however, two metallic coins in use, 
namely the real, of 12J cents, and the half -real. 
These are of nickel, the former being the same 
size as the American nickel, but in value only 
one -eighth of a Guatemala dollar, or peso, which is 
itself only worth a farthing more than an American 
nickel, being 2|d. in English money. 

We each change a $5 bill, getting in exchange 
a collection of excessively dirty bits of paper of 
varying sizes, amounting to $90 in value, which 
makes us feel like millionaires already. Most of 
the $1 bills are so much worn that they have 
long ago come to pieces where folded, and are 
held together by bits of stamp paper. They are 
mostly of a smaller size than the other bills, which 
is often the only way in which they can be distin- 
guished, the inscription having become quite 
illegible through dirt. 

***** 

With our pockets bulging with banknotes, we 
proceed to the station, and there find that we can- 
not get a train to Guatemala City, but onry as far 
as Retalhuleu, where we will have to spend the 
night, continuing the journey in the morning. The 
railway from Retalhuleu to Guatemala is owned 
by a different company, which naturally runs its 
trains so as not to connect with those from 
Champerico. 

Captain Talbot thinks it is a very mean trick 




NATIV1 Ql \ki i R, Al UPl W O. 




\ \ I i\ 



\il\A CRUZ. 






DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 291 

to make us change at a place with an unpronounce- 
able name. How on earth are we going to prevent 
ourselves from being carried away beyond it? It 
is a considerable relief to learn that the train doesn't 
go any farther, so that there is no danger of our 
being carried on too far. 

Before going on board the train we again all 
have to sign our names, this time on a dirty half- 
theet of writing-paper produced by the stalion- 
master. 

At last we get off, at 1.45. The train is similar 
to an American local on a branch line, consisting 
only of day coaches; no deepen are required In 
Guatemala, as no trains arc run at night. The 
gauge is only three feet, 

For any one, like myself, unused to tropical 
countries, the scenery is most fascinating : groves 
of bananas, with their enormous split leaves, BUgar 
plantations, coffee, rubber, corn i.e. maize . and 

hosts of weird-looking plants of all kinds. 

the vegetation being very prolific. Villages are 

frequent, all the houses being of the usual style, 

with low walls and enormous thatched cools, and 
always lots of small colTee-eoloured children in 
evidence, very scantily attired — in fact, many of 

them not being attired at all. 

At four o'clock Retaihuleu is reached. By dint 
of hard practice, 1 can by this time almosl pro- 
nounce the name without dislocating my tongue. 

Here, after once more signing our names, we 

are lei loose, and immediately besieged by a crowd 
of small brown boys, all wanting to carry our 
grips across to the hotel, in payment for which 
they are satisfied with the trilling sum of $1 each. 



292 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

This is quite a picturesque little place, with the 
usual plaza and bandstand in front of the very 
large and magnificent church. There is no band 
playing this evening, but we are regaled with what 
is much more interesting, a performance upon the 
barimba, the national instrument. It is something 
like a xylophone, but about six feet long, and 
played by a quartet of very small barefooted boys, 
the eldest of whom does not look more than twelve 
years old, while the youngest can scarcely be eight. 
The instrument gives an exceedingly pleasing tone, 
and the playing of the boys is wonderful. If a 
quartet like this, with their barimba, could be 
transferred to an English or American music-hall 
stage, they would be regarded as infant prodigies. 

Even in this remote corner of the globe one 
cannot escape from that product of twentieth- 
century civilization, the moving picture show. On 
the way up from Champerico we had made the 
acquaintance of an American, in business in this 
town, and his wife, and they very kindly asked us 
all to accompany them to the theatre. It is a special 
gala performance, and several important dignitaries 
of the town and province are pointed out to us 
among the audience. 

The hotel is of the usual Spanish style, the bed- 
rooms all on the first floor, opening on to a wide 
balcony running all round the courtyard. The food 
is quite good, but it seems peculiar that here, as 
everywhere in Central America, the coffee is not 
made from beans ground for each meal, but a 
bottle of coffee extract is placed on the table, and 
hot water is brought round after the meal, with 
which to fill the coffee cups or glasses. 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 293 

The charges at the hotel are very moderate — only 
$20 each for dinner, bed, and breakfast ! 

* * * * # 

Next morning we leave Retalhuleu by train at 
7 a.m., naturally having had to sign our names 
on another dirty piece of paper before starting. 

All the morning we travel more or less parallel 
to the coast, In the Hal country skirting the 
mountains, among which are some picturesque 
volcanic cones, which lend an additional element of 
beauty to the scenery. 

At some of the stations, where a protracted halt 
is made, the train is besieged by swarms of women 
and girls selling attractive fruit and fearful and 
wonder fill -looking sweetmeats. These are carried 
in baskets or trays on 'he head. On account of 
the quantity of flies feasting on the sweetmeats, 
none of us are brave enough fcO tackle any ol* lie 
but the fruit-sellers do well out of us. You can 

gel a pineapple or a do/en large bananas for a 
paper dollar. If you buy anything costing less 

than a dollar, and tender ;i dirty bit of paper in 
payment, the invariable answi r comes back M No 
hat/ VUelfa " (/' There is no change Hut it you 

put the fruit back. and turn low;irds another woman, 
tin first one soon discovers thai she has change 
after all. In order to gel at it she has to set down 
her basket and hunt aboil! lor her pocket, from 
which she extracts half a pound of nickel coins, 
and picks out therefrom the required amount of 

change. 

Coconuts, costing i dollar each, are a great 

source of joy, the chifl pail of which is derived 
from the novelty of cutting through the green 



294 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

fruity matter surrounding the nut, and then, when 
this is reached, boring a couple of holes in order 
to extract the milk. The actual drinking of this 
fluid and the eating of the white nutmeat are 
quite secondary matters. Then there are delicious 
oranges, abogado pears, full of creamy pulp, and 
other nameless varieties, all most refreshing in the 
hot train. 

About one o'clock we reach Escuintla, where we 
have to wait an hour for the train coming up 
from San Jose, the time naturally being spent in 
a hotel close by, where an excellent lunch is served, 
this taking the place of a refreshment-room in 
the station. 

Leaving Escuintla, the train heads for the moun- 
tains, the steep base of which is reached after a 
short and sinuous approach. Here the country is 
open, and as the train twists and turns, one has a 
changing view, now looking up at the pointed 
Volcan de Agua, or Volcano of Water, whose flank 
we are actually climbing, now towards the Volcan 
de Fuego, or Volcano of Fire, with its cluster of 
peaks, some miles to the east. Then we gaze out 
over the broad belt of flat country below us, with 
the ocean shimmering in the distance, and again 
other peaks along the mountain range come into 
view. 

As the greater part of the rise of over four 
thousand feet has to be made within a distance of 
a very few miles, the railway forms a series of 
loops, climbing gradually up the flank of the 
mountain. At points one can see four or five loops 
below, the lowest of which we traversed an hour 
before. It is a magnificent experience ; while 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 295 

lacking the ruggedness of our own C.P.R. trip 
through the Rockies, this open expanse of the view 
below us has a grandeur of its own. As we mount 
higher, we distinguish the shimmer of the Pacific 
more clearly, and imagine that we see a speck 
representing the San Juan forty miles away, at 
San Jose. 

Then a lake nestling among the mountains to 
the east comes into view, and gradually gets smaller 
as we rise yet higher above it. 

At last we reach the beginning of the upper 
country, and commence to penetrate northwards in 
between the mountain spurs, still keeping on the 
flank of the Volean de Agua, and once more sur- 
rounded by luxuriant vegetation. 

Presently there bursts upon our view a long, 
narrow lake, which the railway skirts lor several 
miles, fresh beauth s being revealed at every turn. 
Our old friend the peak of the Volean de \g1M 
stands out on the far side of the hike, giving rise 
to a series of truly enchanting views, each more 
beautiful than the last. The water is quite hot, 
this behitf a voleanie lake. A halt of a few- 
minutes at a station close to the shore enables us 
to test this for ourselves. 

***** 

Finally, after a most interesting journey, we 
reach the capital city, which bears the same name 
as the republic, at 5 p.m. This is a civilized city ; 
there are not only cabs here, but actually taxis ! 
From a guide-book purchased on the train, we 
learned that the hire of a cab by time is only at 
the very moderate rale of $20 an hour, and a taxi 
$40. There are several quite good hotels in the 



296 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

city; the best one, the Gran Hotel, was full, so 
some of us came to the American House, a very 
comfortable place. 

Guatemala is a city of about 100,000 inhabitants, 
built on the American plan, in rectangular blocks, 
the whole of the avenues and nearly all the streets 
being numbered, the streets to east and west of 
Sixth Avenue being designated by the appellations 
" Oriente " and " Poniente " respectively, much more 
high-sounding than the simple " Este " and " Oeste " 
of Panama. Similarly, the old city of Guatemala, 
forty miles away, is called "Antigua Guatemala," 
whereas the old city of Panama is merely " Vieja 
Panama." 

Old Guatemala, generally referred to simply as 
"Antigua," was destroyed by an eruption of the 
Volcan de Agua some two hundred years ago, and, 
although it was rebuilt, and is still a flourishing 
city, the capital was removed to the safer location 
it now occupies. 

The new capital is not particularly beautiful, the 
narrow, symmetrical, cobble-paved streets being 
rather monotonous. There are, of course, a number 
of very fine churches, one in particular, the Cerrito 
del Carmel, on a little hill just outside the city, 
being especially interesting. From here a splendid 
view of the city is obtained, the surrounding moun- 
tains forming a fine panorama. 

Tram lines intersect the city in various directions, 
but the cars are very small and pulled by a single 
horse. 

One of the most interesting sights is the Minerva 
Park. Here there are beautiful gardens filled with 
all kinds of flowers, ornamental ponds with 





kl ! ILi GUAT1 MAI A. 



PRUIT-SE1 LERS A I \ W \N 3IO] 
STATION. 




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u 



|i ii ijMlftu 


i^^Ufl 


£*w?*c£ifcr &2 


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..I Ml MALA CATHEDRAL 






DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 297 

grotesque piles of rocks, some carved to represent 
animals, but on the whole bearing, at this time 
of year at any rate, an untidy and neglected 
appearance. 

In another part of the park is the Minerva 
Temple, familiar to philatelists as forming the 
subject of the current 50-cent postage stamp. It 
is an imposing structure, built in commemoration of 
something or other, but of no apparent use, except 
for the dances which are sometimes held in it. 
It consists of a square floor, elevated some ten feet 
above the ground, from which it is reached by a 
flight of steps, continuous round all lour sides. 
Above this is a Grecian roof, supported by massive 
columns, but there is no enclosure of any kind. 

The chief attraction of Minerva Park, however, 
is the relief map of the republic, which is on a 
horizontal scale of 1 to 10.000 and a vertical one 
of 1 to 2,000. There arc only two other .such 
relief maps in the world— a1 least, so we were 
informed, and it is an object which well rrpnvs 
a visit, giving one at a glance a knowledge of the 
topography of the country, attainable in no other 
way without long study. The belt of flat land along 
the Pacific coast is seen. Forming a shaking contrast 
to the remainder of the country, which is moun- 
tainous throughout. And on the exaggerated vertical 
scale, the volcanic peaks have an exceedingly rugged 
appearance. Along the Pacific seaboard we see the 
three ports, Oc6s, (lhamperico. and San .lose, and 
inland from the two latter respectively are the 
towns of Retalhuleu and Escuintla, close up to the 
base of the mountains. Then we can follow the 
course of the railway, loop after loop, as it 



298 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

gradually climbs up the flank of the Volcan de Agua, 
on past the beautiful Lago de Amatitlan, and so to 
Guatemala city. Nestling amongst the mountains we 
see Antigua, and farther to the west the only other 
large town in the republic, namely, Quetzaltenango, 
high up in the mountains with no railway com- 
munication. Then we follow the course of the 
Northern Railway from the capital, away down 
through beautiful valleys, until it reaches the 
distant Atlantic coast at Puerto Barrios. 

On the approach of a visitor an attendant appears, 
like an eagle from nowhere, descends upon the 
helpless visitor, and after describing the chief 
features of the map, informs him that for a small 
consideration he will turn on the water, causing 
all the rivers to flow, and so lending an additional 
appearance of reality to the thing. As he gave 
me quite a lot of information about the country, 
and I was feeling pleased because he had been 
able to understand my Spanish without any diffi- 
culty, and I had followed his descriptions equally 
easily, I thought that the consideration ought not to 
be too small, and consequently tendered a $5 bill, 
equal in value to a whole shilling, which was 
received with such gratitude that it was evidently 
considered unusually liberal, just as if one had 
given a real $5 bill on a similar occasion in Canada 

or the States ! 

***** 

There are some pleasant public gardens in the 
city ; in one there is an enormous tree, one of the 
show objects of the place. There is generally a 
band in the evening in one or other of the gardens, 
usually composed of very small, dusky -complexioned 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 299 

soldiers, who play very well, the conductors of 
these military bands being white men, ver}' often 
Germans. 

The people of the lower classes are mostly pretty 
dark skinned, being very largely intermixed with 
the natives, bul certain regiments are composed 
of pure natives, and these are distinguished by 
their more than usually untidy uniforms, dirty straw 
hats in place of military caps, and the absence 
of footgear. No doubt they have boots of some 
sort, but they are generally seen without any. 

In Guatemala we frequently see barimba quartets, 
and always enjoy listening to them, and admire 
the great skill displayed by the little street urchins 
who perform. 

The market is an interesting place to visit. It 
is very large, but a great many people have to 
make use of the neighbouring streets to display 
their wares. Besides all kinds of foodstuff?, there 

are cloths, scarves, shawls, and all sorts of wearing 
apparel of gorgeous colours, sonic really artistic. 
And there arc 1 baskets of many kinds, the most 
prevalent being that known as " argana. consisting 
of two square baskets, not unlike small u frails," 
only made of liner material, fastened together by a 
number of strands of the same material, twisted 
into cords. These Siamese Twin baskets are slung 
over a horse's neck, where they can easily be got 
at by the rider, or they may be slnng over a man's 
Deck or shoulder. Various patterns :ire worked 
into these by means of coloured fibre 

About three miles from the city is La Reforma, 
where there are a number of fine public buildings, 
including a large barracks and a technical school. 



300 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

There is also a fine set of buildings in which an 
exhibition was held a few years ago, and which 
are to be used again for a similar purpose in the 
near future. 

A number of allegorical statues, and some of 
celebrated men in the history of the country, adorn 
the approach to and the avenue in front of the 
buildings. One of these statues has been made 
familiar by the 2-cent stamp. 

The road to La Reforma forms the great Sunday 
evening walk for the citizens of Guatemala. There 
is a steam tramway going some miles into the 
country in this direction. Out here there are some 
very nice country residences, standing in large 

gardens . 

***** 

After two interesting days in this quaint little 
metropolis, we have to return to the coast, rejoining 
the ship at San Jose, a seven hours' railway journey, 
including a stop of two hours at Escuintla. 

On reaching San Jose at 2.45, we find the loading 
of coffee on the San Juan by means of lighters still 
in full swing, and are told that they will not be 
able to take passengers on until five o'clock, so 
we have to put in the time as best we can. That 
is not very exciting, as the " town " consists of 
a number of small wooden shacks alongside the 
railway, and a few of the huts with tall thatched 
roofs, peculiar to this part of the world. Only 
a couple of wooden buildings along the sea-front 
have any pretensions to a civilized appearance. 

Our party is increased by a number of other 
passengers, who came down by the train ; they are 
mostly Germans, travelling for various firms. 




STR1 I i m IRK1 I. 1. 1 ITEMAI I. 




CuKINTn, S'ICARAGI \ 



lo face p. 300. 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 301 

It seems that the greater part of the business in 
these parts is in the hands of the Teutons. 

At five o'clock our luggage is taken on to the 
lighter, but when we attempt to get into the little 
iron cage, to be lowered after it, we are asked 
for our permits, and refused permission to go, upon 
our admission that we have no permits. On 
inquiry, it appears that a permit for embarkation 
must be obtained from the commandant of the port, 
whose office is at the extreme end of the water-front 
of the village. We have been waiting here for 
three hours, but nobody has thought of mentioning 
the fact to us that permits arc required at all I 
Several of the new passengers are in the same fix. 

So we all troop off to the commandant's office, 
only to be informed that the office closed at 3 p.m., 
and that we cannot possibly obtain permits now 
until the morning ! 

As our ship is due to sail at 6 p.m., we don't 
quite sec the lun of this, and inquire whether it 
would not he possible to find the commandant al 

his residence, and gel permits from him. After 
much discussion and delay, we are ushered into 
another room, where we encounter a gold-laced 
individual, who repeats to us the inexorable fact 
that the office closed at three, and that we are 

I committing an unheard-of crime in asking for 
permits alter that hour. On farther explaining our 
situation to him, and again asking whether tin 4 

; august commandant cannot he found at home, and 
induced to depart for once from official formalities 
to the extent of giving us the required permits, 
even after the fatal hour of three 1 , he. after much 
deliberation, and expatiation on the greatness of 



302 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

our offence, retires to a desk at the far end of 
the room, in a little sanctum behind a partition, 
saying that he will see what can be done under 
the circumstances. 

Presently a clerk approaches, and conducts two 
of our party into the holy of holies, and we now 
discover that we have been talking to no less a 
personage than the commandant himself for the 
last ten minutes ! 

Ultimately, two by two, we are all ushered into 
the august presence, and each receives the coveted 
paper, entitling us to the privilege of embarking 
on our ship, subject to the usual charge of 50 cents 
gold for the very uncomfortable trip on a lighter, 
sitting on bags of coffee, and being tossed about 

by the sea. 

***** 

It is actually 11.30 on the following morning 
when we steam away from San Jose, and a trip 
of six hours and a half brings us to Acajutla. in 
the Republic of El Salvador. Next morning the 
ship is officially received by the commandant, a 
big, handsome man, much more elaborately gold- 
laced than his confrere at San Jose. He turns out 
to be a German, formerly a non-commissioned 
officer in the army of the Fatherland, now a General, 
or something of that sort, in the Salvadoranian 
army. He is delighted to meet some of his fellow- 
countrymen. 

The President of the republic was assassinated 
in the streets of San Salvador, the capital, a few 
days ago, and it is said that the deed was done 
by Guatemalans, and there is likely to be war 
between the two countries. 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 303 

The whole Salvadoranian fleet is assembled in the 
roads of Acajutla, and looks truly formidable, one 
of the ships being painted white to look like an 
ironclad, but the other making no attempt to 
disguise the fact that it is built of wood ! 

Company after company of dusky troops is seen 
marching along the coast in the direction of the 
Guatemalan frontier, which certainly looks as 
though something were going to happen, but it 
transpires that they are only going along to a 
suitable spot to bathe ! 

Most of the passengers stay on board, but I want 
to see as much as possible, and go ashore with 
one of the Germans and have a look round the 
city. It is very similar to San .lose, the one street 
being paved with sand. It is wry hot, and the 
water is very tempting, so we indulge in a most 
delightful bathe in the surf. It is highly exhilar- 
ating, especially with the knowledge that there are 
lots of sharks close by ! However, as the native 
troops are going in fearlessly, W« think it sate to 
risk the sharks, and the natives tell us that the 
sharks don t approach close to the shore at the 
place where we are. 

Prolitini> by our experience at San .lose, we took 
the precaution of asking the commandant at what 
lime he closed his office, and were told that we eould 
come at any time before si\. when the last lighter 
went out. 

So, about live o'clock, we present ourselves at 
his office. Hut it is not so easy to get away, for 
he doesn't like to miss an opportunity to speak 
his native tongue. At first nothing will satisfy him 
short of our staying to dinner, but on our pointing 



304 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

out that we have to get on board by six o'clock,, he 
lets us off with a cocktail, a minimum of which he 
absolutely will not listen to a refusal. What with 
the preparation of the cocktail, and the recounting 
of many and various anecdotes, six o'clock comes 
along and finds us still without embarkation permits. 
As the commandant has obviously had more than 
one cocktail already, it is not easy to argue with 
him ; he has to be humoured. But we don't want 
to lose our boat ! However, to our relief, a nephewi 
of his turns up, and tells us that he is also going 
a little way on the San Juan, so, as he has to get 
on board too, our minds are made easy. 

When we finally do make our escape from the 

commandant's hospitality, we find that there is a 

boat to take passengers on board, and that we were, 

therefore, not dependent upon the lighters at all. 

***** 

Acajutla is connected with the capital by rail, 
but La Libertad, which is only twenty miles distant 
from San Salvador, has no rail connection, and 
travellers have to make the journey over the moun- 
tains on horse or mule back. 

We are within a week of Panama now, and 
nobody is allowed to land anywhere, except by 
submitting to being placed in quarantine on arrival 
at Panama until a clear week has elapsed since 
the last embarkation. It is not much loss, how- 
ever, not being able to go ashore at La Libertad, 
for the ship has to anchor about two miles from! 
the shore, on account of the shallowness of the 
water, and the town appears to be very similar to 
others already seen. 

We are joined by a number of new passengers 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 305 

at La Libertad, Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, 
and natives, most of whom have come down from 
the capital. Some of them actually witnessed the 
assassination of the President, and they say that all 
business has been at a standstill in San Salvador 
since that event. 

Some of our passengers from Guatemala, travel- 
ling for various wholesale houses in France and 
Germany, went up to San Salvador by rail from 
Acajutla, and rejoined us al La Libertad. They 
have been able to do no business al all, the whole 
of their day in the capital having been occupied in 
getting permission to have it ! They first had to 
get the signature of the Minister of War on their 
permits, then that of the Prefect of the Police, 
and that of their own Ambassadors. 

Two Spanish nuns, who came down from San 
Salvador, had great difficulty in obtaining permission 
to embark from the commandant of La Libertad. 
because- their permits lacked the signature of one 
of the necessary magnates | 

We eall al one more Salvadoranian port, La 
Union, and again watch the Loading and unloading 
oi freight in lighters, for there is to be no more going 
ashore tor us until we read] Panama. It seems rather 
strange, however, that the passengers who come 
on board at these points are allowed to mix freely 
witli the others, because there is nothing to prevent 
us from catching any infection that they may 
carry. 

Here we make the acquaintance of a new type 
of lighter ; those we have hitherto seen, and gone 
ashore in. were all oval in shape, bul here they are 
rectangular and. with their rows of oars, remind 

20 



306 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

one of ancient Roman triremes, but, of course, with 
only one row of oars on each side. 

La Union is on the shore of the great Gulf of 
Fonseca, that enormous hole in the southern side 
of Central America, the western shore of which 
belongs to El Salvador, the northern to Honduras, 
and the eastern to Nicaragua. 

Amapala, the Pacific port of the Republic of Hon- 
duras, is, however, not on the mainland, but on 
an island, not far from the Salvadoranian shore. 
Captain Talbot left us here ; .he was not looking 
forward to the trip of forty miles in a little launch 
across to the Honduranian mainland, and the three 
days' journey on muleback up to Tegucigalpa, the 
capital. The landing-place on the mainland con- 
sists of a few shacks, where there is not even a 
decent place to sleep in. Such is the primitive state 
of affairs in Honduras. 

* * * * * 

At La Union and Amapala a large number of 
native passengers come on board, but they mostly 
only go across the gulf to the Nicaraguan port of 
Corinto. It is quite a change to have such a crowd 
on board, and to hear the continual chatter of the 
dusky ladies, who speak a local patois of Spanish. 

The Hat strip of land which characterized the 
coasts of Guatemala and El Salvador does not con- 
tinue on the east of the gulf ; the Nicaraguan coast 
is mountainous, and much less monotonous. 

At Corinto we see a wharf for the first time 
since leaving Salina Cruz, but there is no room at 
first, and we have to do some loading with lighters 
while waiting for a berth. After we get up to 
the wharf the procedure is much more expeditious. 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 307 

There is so much freight to load and unload 
here, however, that we lie in port for two whole 
days, which pass very slowly, as we can't go ashore. 

It is a pretty, landlocked harbour, and from the 
water the place looks more like a real village than 
anything we have seen since leaving Mexico except 
Amapala— that is, along the coast ; of course I am 
not including the inland towns we saw in Guatemala 
in this comparison. 

Sunset in Corinto harbour is a glorious sight ; 
the graceful outline of the coconut palms silhou- 
etted clearly against the rose-coloured sky, which 
gradually changes to a beautiful yellow, forms a 
scene hard to surpass in beauty, the colours are 
so splendid. 

The monotony of our stay is relieved somewhat 
by the numerous bumboats which come alongside, 
selling gaily coloured parrots, all sorts of fruit, 
curios made of coconuts, tortoiseshell articles of 
many varieties, and, of course, picture postcards. 
Some of the curios are really interesting— coconut 
shells beautifully carved with elaborate designs, and 
stained black, bowls and other articles made from 
calabashes, and many other thing 

Our last call is at San Juan del Sur, another 
Nicaraguan port, where we take on a quantity of 
rubber and pelts. Then, after two days' steaming 
past the shores of Costa Rica, across the Bay of 
David, round the Azuero Peninsula, and into the 
Gulf of Panama, we reach the famous spot upon 
which the eyes of the world are now turned, 1 just 
thirty days after leaving " Frisco/' 

During the last two days we saw large numbers 
1 Written before the war. 



308 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

of turtles, some very large, and some remarkable 
fish of brilliant colours. 

As the wharf at Balboa is full, the San Juan 
has to anchor in the roads, and, after the medical 
officer's inspection, we go off in a steam tender, 
first calling at the island which serves as a quaran- 
tine station, where all the passengers who have 
come on board during the last seven days are 
detained. A very pleasant and commodious place 
it looks, and I was told that the quarters are 
excellent. Incidentally the launch runs aground, 
owing to the falling tide, and for a time it looks 
as if we will have to wait for the change of 
tide to take us off, but finally, after many futile 
attempts, she is freed, and we proceed up to the 
canal entrance, passing on our right a chain of 
islands linked by breakwaters, and at length reach 
the wharf at Balboa, the Pacific port of the canal. 
From thence, after a long wait, a train takes us in 
ten minutes to the city of Panama. 

Since leaving Guatemala City, we have not seen 
anything in the shape of a town, and the lively 
bustle in Panama has quite a cheerful effect. For. 
what with the canal employees and the throngs of 
tourists, the city certainly does present a lively 
appearance. 

The cities of Panama on the Pacific and Colon 
on the Atlantic are geographically within the Canal 
Zone, which extends for five miles on either side of 
the canal, but they have been excluded from it 
politically, the boundary having been so fixed as 
to leave a narrow neck of land uniting each of these 
cities to the area outside the zone. 




PANAMA l I Ml 1 I RY 




(.HIKUI "I SAS FRANCESCO, I 




UN l \l. IG \ ISLAND 



• 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 309 

The sanitation of these two places is, however, 
under the control of the United States authorities, 
with the result that here, in the heart of Central 
America, in what was a few years ago one of the 
unhealthiest inhabited spots on the globe, you have 
a well-pavetl, spotlessly clean little city, as healthy 
and as pleasant to live in as could be desired. 

The canal is rightly looked upon as one of the 
wonders of the world, and its colossal magnitude 
can only be grasped by actually seeing the work. 
Bui its accomplishment could never have been 
possible without that still greater feat of modern 
science, the splendid sanitation of the Canal Zone. 
The value Of the work ol' Colonel (iorgas and his 
Staff ol' the United Stales Army Medical Department 
cannot be over-cstimalcd. lor what has been done 
here can be done elsewhere. 



The streets of Panama are very narrow, and. 
with the tall, gabled houses, some of (hem are quite 
picturesque. Street ear lines have been laid, but 

the cars have not yei arrived. 1 Transport is. how- 
ever, already easy and cheap. as the open cabs, 
or Mies, which swarm in Ihe town, can be hired for 
ten cents, gold, for any distance within Ihe city, a 
remarkable Contrast to American cab lares. 

There are a number of squares and gardens, very 
prelly with palms and other Luxuriant tropical 
plants, and. ol' course, numerous churches besides 
the cathedral. This latter, although the first church 
to be located in the rebuilding of the city on its 
present site, was not completed until 1760. it is 

1 February 1913. 



310 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

a handsome building, with two Moorish towers 
dominating the Plaza Independencia. 

As in Guatemala, bands play in one or the other 
of the plazas nearly every evening, and the squares 
are then thronged with people of all shades. Some- 
times it is a white band, and sometimes one of 
dusky hue, but, although they wear smart uniforms, 
there are no military bands, for the simple reason 
that there is no army in Panama. One sees small 
figures in khaki all over the town, but these are 
not soldiers, but police. They seem all to be of 
small stature, but very smart. 

The town is not lacking in amusements ; there 
are several moving picture shows, and a magnificent 
theatre, which forms part and parcel of the Govern- 
ment Building. But there are performances there 
only at intervals, when a company happens to 
call here on its way to or from South America. 

Having come down the Pacific coast in a small 
and slow boat, taking a month from San Francisco, 
one can hardly realize that Panama is within a 
week of New York, and three days of New Orleans, 
and it is rather a shock at first to find what 
swarms of tourists are continually overrunning the 
isthmus. Apart from the crowds of private in- 
dividuals, one party of two hundred from some 
eastern city arrived the same day as we did, and took 
up their quarters in the Tivoli, the great tourist 
hotel in the American town of An con, adjacent to 
Panama. And this is quite a usual occurrence. 

There are numerous boats running from Colon 
to New York and New Orleans ; of the former 
several run direct, but four boats a week, 
belonging to various companies, call at Jamaica, 




i \\ \i ZON1 HOI SI S, v R] 




H 



w* 



I ' I M,K-\ CUT, PANAMA ( AN \i 



To doe p. 310. 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 311 

which was my next destination. Under these cir- 
cumstances I had been fondly imagining that there 
would be no difficulty in getting a berth. But, 
on inquiry at the various offices, I learned that all 
the berths had been taken for weeks ahead. It 
was only by a stroke of luck that I was able to 
secure one in a steamer sailing ten days after our 
arrival in Panama. So I had lots of time to look 
around. 

***** 

The climate of Panama is really not so bad as 
it has been painted. The temperature averages 
80° Fahrenheit, rarely exceeding 15° above or 
below that, and never getting so hot as it some- 
limes does in New York or Paris. 1 1 always 
becomes cooler at night. During the spring 
there is a steady breeze blowing aeross the isthmus 
from Atlantic to Pacific nut from cast to west, but 
from north to south, the Atlantic vud of the canal 
actually being farther west than the Pacific end J. 
The rainy season is in the Slimmer, when it is more 
welcome, and there certainly is a very heavy rain- 
fall. But it never rains incessantly all day ; in fact, 
even in the heart of the wet season, the greater pari 
of the day is rainless, and the ground very quickly 
dries up. 

There still are a few mosquitoes, but the 
continuous application of oil, or rather larvicide. 
to the surface of the waters, and the draining of 
all swampy places wherever possible, has vastly 
reduced the numbers of these pests. The splendid 
work of the Medical Department has entirely 
stamped out yellow lever, and reduced malaria to 
a minimum. 



312 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

All buildings in the Canal Zone, houses, offices, 
hospital buildings, and everything, are built with 
wide verandas all round on each storey, and mos- 
quito netting outside each veranda, giving a sort 
of birdcage appearance, not at all unpleasing, and 
very characteristic. 

Besides the Tivoli Hotel and a number of 
administrative buildings, the town of Ancon consists 
principally of the great hospital, built on the slope 
of Ancon Hill. It is approached from the town 
below by a gracefully winding avenue, lined on 
either side with majestic royal palms. A visit 
to the hospital is most interesting. It is a model 
of how a hospital should be run. The buildings 
are dotted about, roadways winding in and out 
among them ; the terrible American rectangular 
block system has found no foothold here. 

The dark green, birdcage buildings, set amongst 
the bright green of the well kept lawns, the neat 
roadways and paths, the graceful palms and other 
tropical plants, the bright flower-beds, all make 
a very cheerful scene. 

A few of the buildings are the original French 
hospital buildings, but these have been brought up 
to date also. One frequently comes across some 
relic of the old French days in the Canal Zone, and 
it is satisfactory to note that the Americans always 
speak in terms of respect and admiration for the 
work of their predecessors, realizing the enormous 
advantages which they possess now, thanks to the 
progress of science. 

The hospital wards are invariably bright, airy, 
and cheerful, well supplied with flowers and all 
that can add to the comfort of the patients. There 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 313 

are separate wards for coloured patients, and 
different ones for " gold " and " silver " employees, 
the former being the American staff, who are paid 
in gold currency, and the latter the foreign 
employees, chiefly unskilled labourers, representing 
all the nations of Southern Europe, South and 
Central America, besides a large proportion of 
coloured labourers, mostly from the British West 
Indies. 

Convalescents are sent to the Sanitarium (anglice 
Sanatorium) on Taboga Island, twelve miles out 
in the Gulf. That is also a favourite pleasure trip 
from Panama, small steamers running at frequent 
intervals. There is a small and picturesque fishing 
village on the island, and several hotels. An ideal 
place for a quiet holiday, with delightful bathing. 
* t t i * 

Another interesting trip from Panama is to the 
old city, known for many years as the richest 
and most Luxurious city In the world, until it was 
sacked by Sir Henry Morgan, the famous buccaneer, 

In 1671. It Lies Ave miles east from the present 

city, and it was entirely overgrown by the dense 
tropical growth, until recently it has been cleared 
to a certain extent, in order to enable the ruins to 
he visited. An excellent road leads there, as good 
as an English country road, passim* a number of 
line residences on the way. A ear line extends 
about three miles in this direction. 

The only buildings visible are the cathedral 
tower, a monastery, and two bridges, known as 
the King's and the Slaughterhouse Bridge respec- 
tively. I was given a lot of information about 
the place by a mounted policeman who happened 



314 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

to come along about the same time as I did, and 
who, to my surprise, spoke perfect English, 
although his swarthy complexion proclaimed him 
unmistakably a true Panamanian. 

The old city was founded in 1519, and throughout 
the middle portion of the sixteenth -century it was 
in its prime. It seems strange to think that where 
the banana-trees are growing in such luxuriance, 
there was a great and flourishing city nearly four 
centuries ago. How many other cities, equally 
great and luxurious, there have been in this part 
of the world in still earlier times, will probably 
never be known ; traces of some have been found 
in various parts of Central America, but the dense 
tropical growth soon covers over everything com- 
pletely. Not only are there quick -growing plants 
like banana-trees and a thousand and one kinds 
of shrubs, trees, and creepers, but even great 
forest trees are to be seen growing everywhere 
among the ruins of Old Panama. 

Another object of interest is the cemetery in the 
present city. The surrounding walls are very thick, 
and are hollowed out on the inner side so as to 
form three tiers of arched recesses, which serve as 
vaults, practically open-air catacombs. 

* * * * * 

But everything in Panama is naturally sub- 
ordinate in interest to the one all-absorbing object, 
the Canal itself. 

The great question to be settled when the 
Americans took over the undertaking was, whether 
to carry out the original idea of a sea -level canal ; 
or to have locks, making the central portion of 
the canal at a height above sea -level. The Inter- 




\ i |. a H \ SI IDE. 




LOCK ^ HAlfBl R. I'l DRO Mli.i I I. 



<. - * t . ) | 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 315 

national Commission, called together to discuss the 
matter, decided in favour of the former plan, and, 
with characteristic daring, President Roosevelt, on 
hearing their decision, immediately settled on the 
other. The lock scheme was accordingly adopted, 
and has proved to be the right thing; the extra 
labour involved in a sea-level canal, in view of 
the difficulties encountered with slides, would have 
been so stupendous as probably to have led to 
the abandonment of the undertaking. 

So the central section, thirty-two miles long, is 
85 feet above the level of the sea, this height being 
attained by means of a series of three locks at 

either end. 

At the Atlantic end. the three locks are all 

together, at Gatun, eight miles from the ocean ; but 

at the Pacific end the three are divided, one lock 
being at Pedro Miguel, at the end of the great 
Culebra Cut, and the other two at Miraflores, two 

miles nearer the Pacific. From here it is four miles 
lo Balboa, the port, and a further four miles 

between the breakwater on one side and land on 

the other, until deep water is reached, making the 
canal fifty miles long over all. 

Of the central section, eight miles is cut through 
the mountainous backbone of the isthmus, the 
famous Culehra Cut. three hundred feel deep in 

places; the remainder is in undulating, hilly 
country, following the valley of the Chagres Kiver, 
hut. owing lo the elevation of the water level, a 
large area of land will be inundated, forming Gatun 
Lake, which will have an area of 101 square miles. 
In order to form this artificial lake, the valley 
of the Chagres River is closed at Gatun by a 



316 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

dam a mile and a half long, and so flat that one 
hardly realizes that it is a dam at all. Some dis- 
tance away from the entrance to the locks is the 
spillway, a great sluice which will carry off the 
excess of water to drive the electrical power plant 
which will work the whole of the machinery con- 
nected with the locks. 

It seems wonderful that in that narrow isthmus 
there can be a river large enough to supply enough 
water to keep the canal full, and have enough to 
spare for driving all the machinery ; but the river 
has been gauged throughout all seasons for a 
number of years, and it has been found that, by 
allowing the level of the lake to rise during the 
wet season to a height of 87 feet above sea-level, 
there will be sufficient water storage to allow of 
the passage of forty vessels daily, using the full 
length of the locks, during the three or four months 
of the dry season. And, as most ships will not 
need to use the full length of the locks, but will 
be able to make use of the intermediate gates, the 
number of passages possible will be considerably 
more than this. 

Twenty-four miles of the canal passage, then, 
will be across a beautiful inland lake, dotted with 
islands, the channel being from five hundred to 
a thousand feet wide, and well marked by beacons. 

The eight miles through the mountains has, of 
course, been the difficult portion of the work, not 
only on account of the enormous size of the cut 
necessary, but chiefly because of the great rock 
and earth slides which have taken place from time 
to time, even after the normal angle of repose had 
been reached, necessitating the removal of hundreds 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 317 

of thousands of tons oi' additional material, and 
giving rise to serious doubts in the minds of many 
people as to whether the canal would ever be 
carried through at all. 

But our cousins, having once undertaken to do 
a thing, are not so easily beaten, and. in spite of 
these tremendous setbacks, are in no way dis- 
couraged, but simply set to. and work on each slide 
as it comes, with redoubled energy. 

It is a revelation to see this great 'cut," with 

nine or ten tracks oi rails along the bottom, rock 
drills at work In one place, steam shovels loading 
away debris in another. Lifting six tons of earth 
Or broken roek at every grab and depositing it 
in a railway wagon I Then there are the material 

trains crawling, snakelike, away towards some 
point where earth-filling is needed, probably the 

marsh lands at IJalhoa. where, when they are filled 

great workshop* are to be erected. 

• * * * * 

The Locks themselves must be seen in order to 

realize in any way their dimensions. Kach set ol 

locks is in duplicate, so that vessels may be passing 
in both directions without interruption. Each lock 

chamber is 110 feel wide and 1.000 iVcl long, and 
will have a depth of from 11 to 17 feel ol water, 

according to season. Intermediate gates divide 

these each into tWO compartments. 600 and (00 feel 

long respectively, so that the whole Length of the 

Chamber need only be used for the passage of the 

very Largest vessels. 

The Hight ol three locks at (ialun. with the 
approach walls, is nearly two -thirds ol a mile in 
jth. 



318 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

The water will be passed into the sidewalls 
through great intakes, and travel along culverts 
as large as railway tunnels, passing into the 
chamber that has to be filled through cross culverts 
under the floor, so that it will well up from under- 
neath throughout the area of the chamber, causing 
a steady rise, instead of the local rush of water as 
is inevitable with the usual arrangement of sluices 
in the lock-gates themselves. 

Every possible precaution has been taken to 
ensure the smooth and safe working of this mighty 
enterprise. The greater number of the accidents 
in the Suez and other large canals are due to mis- 
understanding of the signals between the ships in 
the canal and the people on shore. This will be 
entirely prevented at Panama by the simple safe- 
guard of not allowing ships to pass through the 
locks under their own steam under any circum- 
stances. 

The side walls are extended beyond the locks, 
so as to furnish ample wharfage accommodation 
for the largest vessels while waiting to go through. 
A ship, before passing through a lock, will be 
brought up to this wharf, where cables will be 
fastened, connecting her with four electric loco- 
motives, two on each side, one ahead, pulling, the 
other behind, restraining. The ship will then be 
controlled entirely by the locomotives until she is 
through that lock, or set of locks. The locomo- 
tives work on racks, by means of which their 
speed is limited to two miles an hour, the two 
behind effectively preventing that speed from being 
exceeded at any time by the ship in the lock 
chamber. The rise from one lock chamber to the 




II Wll;l R CRANE. Mlk \FI.»iKI-- 




UPPEK LOCKS, GATUN. 



I < face )'. 518. 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 319 

next being twenty -eight feet, the locomotives sur- 
mount this by means of a piece of track curved in 
a vertical plane, something like a segment of a 
switchback railway. 

As a further protection against the danger of 
a lock gate being rammed, each gate is protected 
by a very heavy chain swung across in front of 
it. In addition to all this, as an extra safeguard, 
the end gates of each lock are in duplicate, 30 
that in the unlikely event of one gate being rammed 
by a ship, there is still another beyond to prevent 
the water from escaping. 

If, by some scarcely conceivable catastrophe, all 
the gates of one of the upper locks at (ratlin should 
be damaged, the rush of water from the lake through 
the lock would be a tragedy of such appalling 
magnitude that it has been deemed advisable to 
guard again8t even such an unlikely event as this. 
That is done by means of a huge contrivance 
which can be swung out across the entrance to 
the lock, and from which a skeleton gate is let 
down in sections, upon which sleel sheets are 

gradually Id down, by degrees building up a 

complete gate across the lock entrance. Of course, 
such a gate would not be watertight, hut it would 
be sufficiently so to enable the necessary repairs 
to the regular gates to be carried out. 

Such is the thoroughness with which all possible 
contingencies have been foreseen and guarded 
against by the farseeing engineers entrusted with 
the colossal work. 

* * * 

It is no wonder that the Americans are proud 
of the Canal ; each official, each workman, feels 



320 THE GALL OF THE WEST 

a personal pride in the great undertaking which 
he is helping to carry through. 

With the crowds of sightseers who are continually 
on the premises, it is obvious that some means 
must be provided to enable them to see all the 
most interesting parts of the Canal conveniently, and 
without interfering with the work. And this is 
very efficiently accomplished by means of sight- 
seeing trains, which are run three times a week, 
twice from Panama, and once from Colon. The 
former take you over the central section, through 
the Culebra Cut, to Pedro Miguel and Miraflores, 
and over the Pacific section to Balboa ; the latter 
takes you over the Atlantic section to Gatun, so 
that by taking the three trips, the whole of the 
chief features of the Canal may be seen. 

And not the least interesting feature is the swarm 
of tourists who pour off the observation cars at 
each stopping place, armed with kodaks of all 
descriptions, snapping at everything in sight, 
standing in perilous positions on the edges of locks, 
or gazing in awe at one of the enormous monsters 
which serve the functions of cranes. There are 
many of truly titanic dimensions to be seen at 
Miraflores, all worked by electricity. 

Colon itself is a most uninteresting place ; no 
public squares, no bands, no attractions at all except 
the ubiquitous moving picture show ; a great con- 
trast after Panama. 

The American town of Cristobal, built alongside. 
is pleasant and picturesque, with its birdcage houses, 
gracefully curved avenues, and palms ; but it is 
not really a town, it is simply a large barracks, 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 321 

or cantonment, the inhabitants being Canal 
employees. 

Few people are sorry to leave Colon, and when 
I got on board the Royal Mail ss. Orubcu it was 
not without a certain feeling of relief. The pleasant 
run of forty -four hours to Kingston afforded a 
welcome rest after ten days of strenuous sight- 
seeing. 

The island of Jamaica has been described by 
many in glowing terms, and no terms could be 
too glowing, for it would be hard to imagine a 
more lovely spot, if only it were nol quite so hot ! 

Since Kingston was destroyed by the earthquake of 
11)07 it has been rebuilt, with no buildings of more 
than two stories, a striking contrast to the rebuilt 
city of San hYancisco. The town itself is not inter- 
esting : the markets, and the black women going 
to and from them, witli large baskets of fruit and 
other commodities on Heir heads, form the most 

picturesque feature. 

The Myrtle Hank Hotel is the great tourist resort, 
with its pleasant garden sloping down to the sea, 
and here, on the night after the arrival of a steamer 

from New York, may be seen the great dress parade 

of all the latest " creations from Fifth Avenue. 

Dances are frequently held here. The boats from 

New York and New Orleans generally slop over 
lor twenty-four hours, in order to give the 
passengers lime to " do the island. 

Port Royal, the old capital, on the end of the 
sandspit which forms Hie outer side of Kingston 
Harbour, is well worth a visil. The city was 
destroyed by the great earthquake of 1692, and if 

is now only a military post, no town remaining. 

21 



322 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

One of the chief objects of interest is Nelson's 
" Quarter Deck/' the observation platform upon 
which that great sailor used to walk up and down, 
scanning the horizon for foreign sails, during his 
time on the island. 

The effects of the earthquake are very evident : 
the old Town Hall, with its badly cracked walls, 
is pointed out ; but the most remarkable thing is 
a small workshop, which was thrown over by the 
recent earthquake to an angle of about sixty degrees, 
without being damaged. 

***** 

The West India Regiment has its headquarters 
at Up Park Camp, on the outskirts of Kingston. 
The officers and non-commissioned officers are all 
white, but the troops are natives, and form a most 
picturesque sight in their bright zouave costume, 
chosen for them by Queen Victoria. 

The Constant Spring Hotel, some miles out in 
the country, reached by electric car. has been closed 
for some years — a great pily, as it is a most delight- 
ful spot, surrounded by luxurious gardens, and is 
itself a very fine building, possessing that most 
attractive feature in a hot climate, a large swimming- 
pool. 

Then there are the Hope Gardens, which well 
repay a visit. These are the Botanical Gardens of 
Jamaica, and here one may see plants of all de- 
scriptions, palms, ferns, flowers, and almost every- 
thing that grows in the country. 

But the real charm of Jamaica is in the country 
itself, right away from the towns. There are 
excellent roads all over the island ; the trip across 
to the north coast, past Castleton Garden, with its 




" 







\ 



J 



DOWN THE COAST TO PANAMA 323 

beautiful display of tree-ferns, to Anotta Bay, and 
thence along the coast past Port Antonio, is delight- 
ful beyond description. Every turn of the road 
brings fresh beauty into view ; the bright blue sea, 
the rocky coast and sandy bays, bordered every- 
where by graceful coconut palms and banana 
trees, form a series of pictures of entrancing beauty. 
And the luxuriant vegetation everywhere ; gorgeous 
tree-ferns, bamboo hedges along the road, rubber 
trees, bread-fruit trees, with their strange leaves, 
magnificent trees of many varieties, generally 
affording foothold for all kinds of brilliant orchids, 
so costly in Europe, and scattered in such profusion 
here ! 

Beautiful meadows are seen, with cattle peace- 
fully grazing ; great trees scattered about ; some 
parts remind one very much of the most delightful 
English country scenes, but, of course, the trees 
are all of varieties unknown in our temperate 
climate. One of the most delightful drives is 
through the Fein dully, when", for three or four 
miles, one's eves are continually feasted with 
scenes of the most exquisite beauty : ferns of all 

sorts, now and then a beautiful tree-fern, banana- 
trees standing out with their gracefully curved leaves 
here and there ; and then we emerge into the open 
country once more, ami the road is lined with 
coconut-palms and hanana-ln es. those ubiquitous 
plants, as useful as they are beautiful. 

* * * * * 

There is one thing which to some extent mars 
the enjoyment of the scenery : one dares not walk 
on the grass, but has to keep strictly to the road or 
footpath ! This is on account of the pestilent little 



324 THE CALL OF THE WEST 

grass-ticks, which swarm everywhere. It was not 
always so ; formerly one could walk freely in the 
grass, but there were snakes, and in order to get rid 
of these they imported mongooses '( one cannot get 
rid of the impulse to say " mongeese "), which effec- 
tually killed off the snakes. But it was discovered 
too late that a worse evil had been caused ; the 
grass -ticks had formerly been kept down by the 
snakes, but, now that these have been killed off, 
they have increased to such an extent as to make 
walking in the grass impossible for white people. 
They are very small, almost invisible, and burrow 
under the skin, causing great irritation. 

But, in spite of this great drawback, the scenery 
is so magnificent that one can be content to feast 
one's eyes on it from the road or footpath. 

There are many beautiful places in Jamaica 
which I did not have time to visit ; the trip up to 
Newcastle is a delightful one, and that up lo the 
Blue Mountains one of the most fascinating imagin- 
able, besides many others. All too soon the time 
came when I had to step on board the ss. Manzan- 
ares, bound for Avonmouth with its cargo of 
bananas and its handful of passengers, and say 
Farewell for a time to the great New World. 




SKETCH MAP 

OF PART OF 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 



INDEX 



itia, BOS, 

Alba L10 

Alert 

i 
Ancoi:. 

117. 152, 
l.vj. 
Athaba^ka Landing, 

BaUi 10 

Bari] 

19, M-. 
L2f 

« 
I 

■ 
51,1 . 11.'. !.... 

I on, 266 

("aril 
186 

Cham, the, 1 18, I 

chik-otin [ndiai 
Chflootin ! l r.< 

Chilko Lake, I 
Chin./ 



Chinese, 256, 257, 258 
. I 270 
n, 48, 115, 117 

. 315 
B08, BIO 
<' rnua 

121, 124, L87 

Coug. 

114, 219 

6, 176 
DnnoMM, 90 

l»unv 

B ilw.iv, 
21, 

"■A 

204, 210, 21 i 

204, 909 

. 11D. 171 



MB 



326 



INDEX 



Forest fires, 45, 149, 180 

Fort Fraser, 156 

Fort George, 50, 53, 112, 116, 119, 

122, 123, 130, 142, 150, 158, 166, 

186, 187, 188, 201, 215, 217, 237, 

263 
Fort George Canon, 122, 124, 187 
Fort St. John, 218, 220, 221 
Fraser River, 50, 51, 54, 55, 83, 

112, 119, 120, 121, 151, 186, 188, 

195, 254, 255, 264, 265 
Fraser River Canon, 49, 128, 186 

Gatun, 315, 320 

Georgia, Strait of, 80, 86, 167, 253, 

265 
Giscome, 188, 189, 192 
Glacier, 17, 27, 59, 69 
Gold-mining, 71, 127, 209 
Gopher, 31 
Gorge, the. 82, 83 
Graham Island, 171, 173, 174, 176 
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, 79, 

116, 154, 160, 164, 166, 167, 187, 

191, 218 
Great Northern Railway, 92, 255 
Grouard, 234-6, 238 
Groundhog, 31, 58 
Grouse Mountain, 265 
Guatemala (city), 284, 288, 290, 

295-300, 308, 310 
Guatemala (rep.), 288-91, 303, 

305-7 
Gun Creek, 69, 70 

Haida Indians, 170 

Hanceville, 66, 119 

Hazelfcon, 156, 166, 169 

Hecate Straits, 170, 171, 172, 174, 

183 
Hell's Gate, 219 
Hole-in-the-Wall Mountain, 209 
Honduras, 306 
Hope, 49 
Howe* Sound, 262 
Hudson's Bay Company, 185, 213, 

215, 273 



Hudson's Bay Post, 153, 200, 201, 

220, 221, 229, 235 
Hudson's Hope, 213, 222 
150 Mile House, 48, 117, 119, 157, 

158 

Jamaica, 310, 321-4 
Japanese, 171, 257, 284 
Juan de Fuca, Strait of, 80, 83, 87, 
110 

Kaien Island, 160, 164 

Kaslo, 15-17, 23, 24 

Kaslo and Slocan Railway, 23 

Kingston, Jamaica, 321 

Kitselas Canon, 169 

Kitsilano, 241, 249, 259, 261, 265, 

272 
Kootenay Lake, 15, 17 

Lac La Hache, 119 

Lady smith, 87, 90 

La Libertad, 304, 305 

La Reform a, 299 

La Union, 305, 306 

Lesser Slave Lake, 221, 234, 235 

Lightning Creek, 125 

Lillooet, 48, 53, 69, 71, 74-6 

"Lions," the, 252 

Logging, 87, 92, 93, 168 182 

Los Angeles, 279, 282 

Lulu Island, 265 

Lynn Creek, 267, 270 

Lytton, 48, 51, 52, 76, 112 

McLeod, 195, 197-9, 219 
McLeod's Lake, 203 
Masset Inlet, 171, 174, 1S1 
Mazatlan, 283, 284 
Miraflores, 315, 320 
Mirror Landing, 236, 237 
Moose, 65, 131, 136 
Mosquitoes, 56, 58, 199, 311 
Mount Baker, 80, 265 
Mount Cardiff, 6S 
Mount Etheline, 173, 180 
Mount Pleasant, 254 






INDEX 



327 



Mount Selwyn, 204, 208, 209, 215 
Mount Tatlow, 60 

Nanainio, 86-90 

Narrows, 242, 247, 248, 264 (see 

also Quatsino, Second, Seymour) 
Nechaco River, 188 
Nelson, 17 
Newport, 263 
New Westminster, 49, 50, 78. 128, 

240, 254, 255, 265 
Nicaragua, 306, 307 
Nootka, 109 
Norris Landing, 236 
North Arm, 242, 262 
Northern Pacific Railway, 255 
North Vancouver, 53, 173, 252, 263, 

264, 270 

Oak Bay, 80 

Oc6a, 288, 297 

Old Guatemala, 296 

Old Panama, 296, 313 

Olympic Mountains, 80, 87, 265 

Pacific Great Eastern Railway, 

166, 263 
Pack River, 202, 2U3, 214 
Panama, 279, 283, 296, 304, 305, 

308-13 
Panama Canal, 165, 185, 279, 314- 

20 
Parle Pas Rapids, 204, 210, 214 
Parsnip River, 203 
Peace River, 184-86, 194, 908- 

33, 237, 238 
Peace River Canon, 211 
Peace River OtOtfing, 217, 223, 

230, 233 
Peace River Pass, 185, 208 
Pedro Miguel, 315, 320 
Port Essington, 168, 170 
Port Hardy, 95 
Port Mann, 255 
Port Moody, 240, 263 
Port Royal, 821 
Port Simpson, 165 



Portland Canal, 166 

Prince George, 166, 215 

Prince Rupert, 160-70, 172. 174, 

182, 183, 263 
Puget Sound, 86, 167 

Quatsino, 91, 95-108 
Quatsino Narrows, 97, 104, 106 
Queen Charlotte City, 174, 182 
Queen Charlotte Islands, 94, 170- 

83 
Quesnel, 49, 120, 121, 124, 157, 

217 
Quesnel Forks, 119, 157 
Quetzaltenango, 298 

Railway construction, 51, 83, 112, 

170, 187, 238, 240, 263 
Ranch, 18, '2\), 52, 55, 146, 149, 

218 
Real estate, 123, 170, 231, 240, 

277 
Kemittaiiee man, 19, 275 
Retalhulou, 290, 291-3, 297 
Revillon Frtot, 1*5. 213, 220, 221, 

Boyd N'.W. Mounted Police, 185, 
820 

Saunich Inlet, 91 

St. John, B.C. (mi Fort St. John) 

Salina Cruz. 287. 288, 306 

Salvador (ate El and S.ui ) 

Sandon, 16, 23 

San Francisco, 279, 280-2, 283. 

307, 310, 321 
San Jose, 288, 295, 297, 300, 303 
San Juan del Sur, 307 
San Juan Island, 80, 86 
San Salvador, 302, 303, 305 
Seattle, 81, 84, 85, 162, 245, 279 
Second Narrows, 262 
Servant problem, 257 
Seymour Narrows/92, 94, 104, 105, 

167 
Shaughnessey Heights, 252, 264 
Siwash Rock, 242, 248 



328 



INDEX 



Skeena River, 160, 166, 168, 170, j Vancouver, 48, 49, 75, 76, 77, 78, 
172 



Skidegate, 171, 172, 174, 181 
Skunk, 31 



86, 159, 163, 164, 165, 166, 172, 
215, 231, 239-78 
Vancouver Island, 77-110, 167, 172, 
• 174, 181, 239, 248, 265 
Slave River, 184 Van Winkle, 125 

Smoky River, 233 Victoria, 78-87, 90, 9J , ilO 

Snowalides, 24, 40, 41 Victoria and Sidney Terminal 

Soda Creek, 49, 115, 120, 157, 186 j Railway, 92 
South Vancouver, 254 i Victoria West, 82 



Stanley Park, 241, 242, 247, 264, 

266 
Stuart Lake, 201, 219 
Summit Lake, 194, 195, 199, 214 
Suquash, 95 

Taboga Island, 313 
Tegucigalpa, 306 
Tehuantepec Railway, 287 
Tete Jaune Cache, 188, 1^5 
Thompson River, 51, 112, 114 
Totem poles, 95, 107, 172 



Volcan de Agua, 294, 295, 296, 

298 
Volcan de Fuego, 294 

Washington, State of, 80, 87. 171, 

239, 265 
West Coast, 91, 95, 108-10 
West Vancouver, 241 
Whistler (see groundhog) 
Whitewater, 19, 23, 24 
Whitewater Lakes, 63, 64 
Willow River, 145, 188. 190. 191 



University of British Columbia, 253 ' Yakoun Lake, 180 



28 6 - 90 



UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS WOELNQ AXD LONDON 



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